


Giving Up the Ghosts

by Nenya85



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Angst, Brotherhood, Fantasy, M/M, Prideshipping, Romance, Virtual Worlds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-21
Updated: 2013-11-07
Packaged: 2017-10-18 11:43:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 51
Words: 266,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/188564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nenya85/pseuds/Nenya85
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Alcatraz, Kaiba takes Yami's advice to defeat his personal demons a little too literally and builds a virtual world to do just that. But mixing technology and Millennium Items is rarely safe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Duelist's Genesis

**In the book, 'Dune,' there's a saying of the Bene Gesserit: "Beginnings are such delicate times." I think that's true for stories as well as people, so I'd love to know what you think of this beginning.**

**DISCLAIMER:** I don't own Yugioh. I do admire Kazuki Takahashi for his skill in creating such vibrant characters and for his generosity in allowing the rest of us to borrow them for a few adventures of our own.

**SUMMARY:** After Alcatraz, Kaiba takes Yami's advice to defeat his personal demons a little too literally and builds a virtual world to do just that. But mixing technology and Millennium Items is rarely safe. Prideshipping (eventual Yami / Kaiba).

**THE TIMELINE:** This story begins after Alcatraz and takes off in its own direction. The DOMA, Grand Prix, and AE arcs do not exist in this story.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I use the manga version of events, where possible, but I also lean on the subtitled anime versions of the Virtual World and Noa's Arc episodes, simply because they have a lot of the Kaiba brothers and I like them. When necessary, I'll put in a Manga or Anime Note explaining plot or character differences from the dub version.

**MANGA NOTE:** Yami and Kaiba have two duels that either don't appear in the anime, or appear in a radically different form. Their first shadow game occurs when Kaiba steals Sugoroku's BEWD from Yugi. Yami challenges him to a shadow game (or penalty game) to get it back. Yami wins when Kaiba summons the BEWD, but the dragon destroys itself rather than follow his commands. Yami inflicts a penalty game on Kaiba where he is trapped in the illusion that he is in the Duel Monsters world and is killed by his own monsters. Kaiba creates Death-T to avenge this loss. Mokuba insists on being one of Yami's challengers. Kaiba misreads this as a personal attack on him, and when Mokuba loses he forces him to go through the Death Simulation chamber he had designed for Yami. Yami rescues Mokuba, and defeats Kaiba by summoning Exodia. He shatters Kaiba's heart, giving Kaiba the opportunity to rebuild it without the darkness that was destroying him.

**SUBTITLED ANIME NOTE:** In the Legendary Heroes arc, where the Big 5 trap Kaiba in a virtual world, they also make an avatar of Mokuba as a princess. In the dub it's implied that Kaiba does it as a compliment to Mokuba to turn him into an awesome character. In the subtitled anime, however, it's suggested that they dress him as a girl as an insult.

**STYLE NOTE:** Yami and Yugi share a body. _Italics are used to show conversations between Yugi and Yami that are taking place in the presence of other people._ Conversations between them that occur when they are alone are not italicized since the purpose of the italics is to show this is a conversation that not everyone can hear.

* * *

**CHAPTER 1: THE DUELIST'S GENESIS**

_Is there really a collective unconscious? A place where all our dreams and nightmares meet and merge as if they were at a singles bar of the mind? And if such a place doesn't exist, why are so many of our stories the same, for all that each teller is an individual? The hero… the self… the star crossed lovers… the trickster…. The fool… the devil incarnate. We say their names and almost nothing more needs to be said; our imagination fills in the rest._

**KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

The tentacles had almost trapped me, almost pinned my arms against my chest. If the Wicked Worm Beast succeeded, I'd be helpless. Hell, I'd be dead.

I grinned.

"It'll take more than you to beat me!" I screamed as I called in my dual kodachi, the twin honed blades gleaming in the sunlight. I spiraled in time with the monster, slicing and dicing as I whirled in a tighter and tighter circle, the sharp blades severing the tentacles, hacking them to pieces as they still reached out to trap me. Then the Wicked Worm Beast was helpless. I vanished the dual kodachi and called in my katana instead. It was time to go for the jugular and end this…

It didn't take long. I wiped the sweat and blood off my face. I laughed, looking at the chopped-up remains of the Wicked Worm Beast at my feet. I couldn't kill it often enough. In fact, I'd been killing it all week. It'd been just as much of a kick each time.

" _Anger, bitterness, hatred… these are the demons you must defeat…"_

I shook my head, wishing it was as easy to shake the other Yugi's voice out of it. Knowing that I was following his advice was bad enough without having to hear his self-righteous voice while I was doing it. Besides, I was going along with my rival's advice for my own reasons, not because I believed in him. I was going to be a true duelist whatever it took.

The adrenaline vanished as if it too was an illusion in my virtual world. I kicked at the Worm Beast's severed limbs, suddenly impatient with this game… with everything.

It had seemed simple at first.

I hadn't needed Yugi's sanctimonious other self to tell me I had to find a way to defeat my own anger and hatred. I thought of my duel with him on Pegasus' tower, of my dragon rotting from the inside just as hatred had eaten me hollow. I thought of the way Pegasus had so easily turned my Crush card against me when we'd finally dueled, just as I had let bitterness run unchecked through my system, destroying everything it touched. Finally, I thought of my rival again, of how he'd diffused my Ultimate Dragon, had broken it back to its basic components at Alcatraz, just as he'd done to me, leaving me to wonder: without my anger… would there be anything left?

It had made sense to create this virtual world, where I could go back to the things that had built up such a reservoir of hatred and rage and defeat them once and for all, where I could beat anything that had ever tried to stop me, that had ever stood in my way. So many of those moments seemed to come with duel monsters attached. And so I had created a world where I could fight them … a world of endless battles and challenges. And all of them… every monster… every danger… generated by my thoughts, by my moods, by my nightmares. It was exhilarating.

Or, it had been.

I kicked the Wicked Worm Beast's disembodied remains again. He'd been the final monster I'd faced in that penalty game where the first Blue Eyes White Dragon I'd ever held in my hands had decided I wasn't worthy of him. The Wicked Worm Beast had killed me; he'd been the symbol of my first defeat. Why did beating him suddenly seem so inconsequential?

" _I expected better from you. You can not build anything lasting with anger and hatred as your foundation."_

"Shut up!" I yelled, even though I knew there was no one around to hear me.

But sometimes my rival, even as a voice created by my memories, was just as persistent here as in any duel outside. I wondered… since the inhabitants of this virtual world were created out of my thoughts, since the setting changed with my moods, did that mean I could bring my rival or some imaginary version of him (as if he wasn't imaginary enough to begin with) into this virtual world?

I scowled. I hadn't made it this far in life by listening to other people, much less relying on them. And it's not like I needed his help to figure this out. Besides something about finding a technological way to turn him into a new kind of shadow, to exchange his Puzzle for a virtual prison, left a bitter taste in my mouth. Preachy as he was, he deserved better.

And he was right. This didn't feel new, it felt like more of the same. Once again I was using my anger to try and shove past it, trying to blast through my demons with the force of my hatred. Even the excitement I felt at beating them, at winning, was familiar, seductive.

So was the danger.

The game could kill me. Oh not physically of course, at least not right away. But brain death is death nonetheless. A permanent coma to replace the temporary one following Death-T… until my body finally gave out from lack of direction, everything that made me Seto Kaiba long since gone. I hadn't told Mokuba. And I didn't want to die. But I wanted an answer that would lead me to my true future. It seemed only fitting to risk that future in return.

But at Alcatraz, the other Yugi had told me that losing didn't have to equal death. In the end, I guess I'd agreed. I hadn't died in the ruins of Alcatraz; I'd chosen to live with my defeat instead. So why was I returning to the last lesson Gozaburo had taught me as if I was still his pupil? How could I reach a true future if even in the virtual game I'd designed to help me sort things out, I was marching backwards?

I grimaced as I saw the Armed Ninjas moving through the trees. They were going to try and capture me just as they had when my treacherous Board of Directors had tried to take me down in the first virtual reality game I'd designed. I'd beaten the Big Five, but that hadn't taken the sting out of having been imprisoned by them in the first place, having ended up bound and helpless. And I hadn't taken the Big 5 down myself; my victory had been tainted by losing Mokuba, by losing even a virtual reality avatar of my brother, by needing the other Yugi's help to win, by having to merge my monster with his, no matter how satisfyingly powerful a union that had been.

The Armed Ninjas were closer now. I pretended not to notice them even though the game had picked up on the increased rate of my virtual heart, the quickened movements of my avatar's eyes, and knew that my ignorance was a sham. This virtual world allowed me to call in weapons or summon the cards from my deck. I usually took care of things myself; I hadn't wanted to rely on anything, not even my monsters. My losses had been so personal; I wanted my victories to match.

I started to call in my weapons then stopped. What would that prove? That I was still tied to the same old battles, to my need to prove myself? I moved into the open, waited for them to surrounded me, then called in my Blue Eyes White Dragon. Now that I knew they were just a distraction, I wanted them out of the way. My mood was so unexpected the game didn't have time to compensate. My dragon was fast; its fire was deadly. I watched it flame the area until nothing was left. I saluted my dragon. I could have sworn it dipped its head in acknowledgment before it vanished.

I was alone, but that wouldn't last. If I sat still for too long, the game would throw in another attack. I had to look into changing that. The time I'd spent here, the Wicked Worm Beast at my feet, had been more useful somehow than killing it. I'd had time to think. I hadn't done that since I'd been in that coma.

"Great," I laughed to myself. If I needed some time to figure out what to do next, all I had to do was threaten or insult the midget and get his more interesting other self to shatter my soul again. I'm sure no one would mind except for Mokuba.

That sobered me. I'd created a game I'd never let my brother play. I'd never told anyone, not even Mokuba, why I designed games. But it all came back to him. He'd smile… even at our relatives' house, even at the orphanage, even at Gozaburo's mansion, when I made up games for us to play, when I told him about the rides I was going to design, when we'd build them together in our heads.

This virtual reality game had started out as something personal, as all the best games do. But maybe it had commercial possibilities as well. With a proper safety system and expertise levels added, maybe other people would want the chance to fight their own personal demons – if they could find them.

I certainly wasn't about to give up looking for mine. But it would have to wait for another day. It was time to get back.

"Exit game," I called out.

Mokuba was waiting when I got out of the VR pod. I must have been playing longer than I realized. He looked worried. I wondered if he'd been checking up on me. And he shouldn't. I was the older brother, not him. But I'd catch Mokuba watching me when he thought I wasn't looking, urging me to eat, reminding me to sleep, trying to sit up with me when I refused to do either. His concern reminded me of my failures, of just how far I'd fallen. If I'd held on longer after Gozaburo had died, he wouldn't have these doubts. That's why I didn't say anything, didn't tell him to knock it off. I'd earned his estimation of my weakness.

"How long have you been here?" I asked, frowning.

"Not long, Nisama. This game's pretty important, huh?"

I knew what he was asking. He wanted to help. He wanted to join me. He wouldn't ask directly. He never insisted on helping over my objections, not anymore… not since Death-T.

What would it be like if it was a two player game?

Mokuba was my heart. Duelist's Kingdom had proven that. I was never as strong as when he was at my side, as when I was fighting for him. I didn't have a clue what to do next; it was time to admit it. Maybe we could figure this out together. Of course the game had no safety system now…it could literally kill…

"I've got a couple of things to fix up," I said. "Then do you want to play this game with me?"

"Nisama! That would be awesome! Like our own adventure?"

"That's how it was designed to work," I said. _'Just as soon as I make it a little less lethal,'_ I added to myself. It struck me that adding a safety system wasn't a bad idea. If I adapted it for multiple players and Mokuba liked it, it would probably make sense to develop a commercial version to pilot as an attraction at our new KaibaLand.

We headed back to the office. I wanted to get started.

"The first thing we have to do," I said to Mokuba when we were seated behind my desk with a pair of laptops open in front of us, "is to update your virtual reality avatar."

"As long as I'm not in a dress," he grumbled.

"No dresses," I agreed. That stunt had ticked me off too. Nobody dressed my brother like a girl. At least the Big Five had gotten trapped in cyberspace. They'd deserved it. I started to copy the outfit Mokuba was wearing: striped shirt, hooded sweatshirt, jeans. It was practically his uniform.

"Could you put a red stripe in my hair? It'd match the one on my sneakers," he asked.

I frowned. That didn't seem like an adequate reason to me, but I wasn't about to start questioning his fashion choices.

"You can put it in yourself," I said, highlighting the coding that would have to be changed.

"Cool!" He grinned.

"We need to upload weapons for you," I added, hoping it would distract him before his head looked like a rainbow… and an imperfectly groomed rainbow at that.

"You have to be careful what you pick, though," I warned. "This game ties into your brainwaves to determine your opponents and the challenges you face. I'm going to adapt it to recognize and respond to more than one person's brainwaves and to allow an infinite variety of challenges. But the flipside is, you can only use a weapon your reflexes will respond to in real life or through a video avatar. I'll have to create a program to search for avatars as well as one to extract information from online gaming hosts," I mumbled to myself, before adding even more quietly, "right after I make it a lot less lethal."

"No problem. But stop talking about this virtual world like it could really kill you. You wouldn't do anything that stupid just for a game, would you?" Mokuba was smiling, but I wasn't fooled. He was checking up on me again.

"Just for a game? No."

I saw no need to elaborate. It must have satisfied him because he went to the weapons list and headed, as expected, straight for the throwing, launching and aiming weapons.

"Still no guns, Nisama," Mokuba said tentatively. It was an old argument. One we'd never actually had out loud.

"No," I said flatly, and went back to staring at the monitor. Mokuba didn't press the point.

There was nothing to say, anyway. Swords made you face your opponent head on; they made each battle a personal test. But Mokuba would've strapped a rocket launcher to his back had one been available. He figured weapons were weapons so why not go for the heavy artillery? I'd made an exception for bows, throwing knives, sling-shots and shuriken. But guns, missiles, grenades and all the other accessories of modern wars reminded me too much of the old Kaiba Corporation. I didn't blame Mokuba for not understanding; I'd never explained. It would have meant talking about the weapons I'd spent years designing, the ones that had killed thousands of people without giving even one of them the chance to fight back honorably. It was the difference between death and slaughter. I was willing to deal out one, if necessary – but not the other.

I pushed that thought aside, concentrating instead on Mokuba's intent face. As expected he was busy adding shuriken, a bow, and throwing knives to his arsenal.

"What if you get caught at close range?" I asked.

He smiled at me. "Well, I'll have you, right?"

I caught myself before saying, "You shouldn't rely on anyone, not even me." It was true, but Mokuba was joking, and it was too close to the things I'd said after Gozaburo had died. It was the line of reasoning that had lead straight to Death-T, and years later, I was still trying to find my way out of its continuous loop, even in small things. Besides, I reminded myself, Mokuba could use the throwing knives for hand-to-hand fighting if he had to. And I was putting in a safety system – it was the first order of business. It wasn't like there'd be any danger. Just to make sure, as little as I liked involving other people in my affairs, I'd get a duelist to help me with the beta tests before I let Mokuba anywhere near the game.

I frowned, wondering if this new road would finally lead to my true future, or if it was just another dead end.

It would be a shame if all I got out of this was another product to add to Kaiba Corporation's catalog.

* * *

**YAMI'S NARRATIVE**

"What's all this?" Yugi asked, staring at the papers in front of him on Kaiba's polished conference table.

"I just explained it," Kaiba said, frowning. "I designed a virtual reality game. In addition to the conventional storylines and one and multiple player games, it has a setting where the opponents and contests are the products of the player's brainwaves, where each player's unconscious thoughts and moods help determine the settings and the nature of the challenges. I need someone to test it with me to make sure it will respond to multiple players' brainwaves without getting confused."

"I know. I meant, what's all of this?" Yugi repeated, pointing to the papers in front of him.

"A contract as a temp beta tester for Kaiba Corporation."

"Why? You know I'll help."

"It's how I do business."

"This isn't business. We're friends… kind of. I'd be glad to help."

Kaiba grunted in place of an answer.

" _Remind him that at Alcatraz he told us that if friendship was in the cards, his had possibilities. Ask him if he was lying,"_ I said inside of Yugi's head.

Yugi repeated my message, stumbling a little on the words.

Kaiba stared at Yugi, probably reassessing which of us he was dealing with.

"Great. You're starting to sound alike," he muttered.

I was tempted to trade places with Yugi just long enough to let Kaiba see my smirk, but I tried to intrude as little as possible on Yugi's life unless we were dueling. The problem was, every interaction with Kaiba felt like a duel, urging me to the surface.

"What else can I do to help? Do you want me to call some other duelists?" Yugi asked.

"There are no other duelists," Kaiba stated. He turned his back on us and walked to the window. "Go ahead. I'm sure you want to talk it over with your invisible friend. Just make it quick. I don't have all day."

" _What do you think?"_ I asked Yugi.

Yugi smiled. _"The question is: what do_ _you_ _think? Kaiba might have been talking to me, but he wants to test his game out with you."_

" _Then the answer is no! I will not allow him to insult or overlook you!"_

Yugi chuckled. Kaiba turned around at the sound, then rolled his eyes and went back to contemplating the view of the sidewalk 60 stories below his window.

" _For once, I don't think Kaiba meant to insult me,"_ Yugi said. _"I think something's bothering him. Maybe he wants your help and this is the closest he's going to come to asking for it. And you know you're curious, Yami. A game where the challenges are designed by and for each player? How could you resist?"_

" _Because testing this game should be your place, not mine."_

" _It's okay. Besides… maybe it'll help you remember stuff about who you are or how you got stuck in a puzzle or how it all got broken up."_

" _I wonder if Kaiba's game could do that… find something hidden in my mind."_

" _You won't know 'til you try it,"_ Yugi said with his usual optimism.

I met Kaiba in his computer lab early the next morning. He scanned my face as I walked in, obviously checking eye shape and color.

"It's a good thing I designed two avatars for you," he said. "I loaded your deck too, but you can draw from the entire data base of duel monsters if you want to. At each stage you can pick seven duel monsters to call on. You can rotate them in and out at each resting point. Any duel monster killed is lost for the rest of the virtual reality session. Do you want to start in conventional story mode, with the standard two-player games – or go straight to the brainwave mode?"

"What do you think?" I grinned at him.

"Personal demons for the win," he said, grinning back. He pointed to the touch screen monitor next to the VR pod in front of me. "You need to pick your weapons and monsters for the first challenge. Then we're ready."

I nodded, pleasantly keyed up as I made my selections. The VR pods were sleeker – and much more comfortable – than I remembered from Kaiba's last virtual world. The transition was smoother too… even more effortless than when Yugi and I switched places. As soon as I had donned the VR helmet and was reclining in the pod, the room disappeared.

I was swept into Kaiba's virtual world and onto a tower parapet that instantly crumbled beneath our feet. I had the heady, terrifying sensation of tumbling to earth. I could hear Kaiba's laugh above the wind that was whistling in my ears. I was glad I'd picked Winged Dragon, Guardian of the Fortress as one of my seven monsters. He appeared instantly and plucked us from the sky, carrying us gently in his talons as he drifted down.

"Damn," Kaiba said as we landed. "I wanted to check the safety system, since we were falling to our deaths anyway."

"Your inaction was deliberate? How dare you risk Yugi's life like that?"

Kaiba pressed his lips together, probably to keep from saying, _"Better his than Mokuba's."_

"I wasn't risking anyone's life. It's called a _'safety system'_ for a reason," he snapped. "It's set at the highest level right now. It would have returned us to the top of the tower – or exited us – long before we hit the ground. Where were we anyway? It looked like Pegasus's tower, but it fell apart before I could be sure…"

I shook my head in place of an answer. I looked at Kaiba. When I'd met him in the computer room, he'd been all in blue. His trench coat was unchanged, but now his shirt and pants were black. Although they were only a shade darker than the midnight blue of his coat, the difference was noticeable – and disconcerting.

"What happened to your clothes?" I asked, puzzled.

He snorted. "You didn't think we were really here, did you? These are our virtual avatars."

"How come I'm still dressed the same?"

"It's not my fault your wardrobe never changes." Kaiba shrugged. "Well, if we stay in one place for too long, I'll get to check the safety system anyway. There's a minor glitch in the program… and here he is, right on cue."

I took a step back as the Wicked Worm Beast appeared in front of us. He ignored me and reached out to grab Kaiba, immobilizing the taller duelist with his tentacles before reeling him in closer. Kaiba offered no resistance, even when one tentacle wrapped itself around Kaiba's neck. His arms and legs were already enmeshed. I was about to call in my monsters to fight it when Kaiba disappeared. He reappeared at my side a second later as the Wicked Worm Beast vanished.

The Wicked Worm Beast had torn through the sleeves of both his coat and shirt, ripping them partially off at the shoulder. My attention was caught by the pale skin of Kaiba's upper arm. I thought I saw an old scar, possibly a burn. Then I blinked and the image was gone. His clothes had been repaired as if the damage had never existed. I glanced at his face. It was, as usual, unrevealing.

Kaiba spoke, seemingly addressing the sky. "Good, the safety system is fully operational. Unhide codes."

Instantly lines of computer commands appeared in front of us. Kaiba scanned them, then said, "Hide codes."

They disappeared.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I have to be able to access the program from inside it. Or Mokuba, of course." He frowned. "The Wicked Worm Beast ignored you."

"The Wicked Worm Beast was your glitch?" I asked incredulously.

"Yeah. He's picked up the bad habit of following me around."

"Why?"

"Why were we on that tower?" he countered.

"What happens now?" I asked in place of an answer.

"Whatever you want."

"You know what I want. What I've been searching for all along. My memories."

Predictably, Kaiba snorted. "That nonsense again," he said.

"I want to know how and why I ended up here." I insisted. "I want to know who the man who entered this puzzle was, what he felt and thought. How can I face even the tenuous future I have, if I don't know what went into its making? Isn't that what you're doing as well? You tried to seal your past. Once, it was the only way to allow your future to continue. It didn't work out too well, did it? – or you wouldn't be here. Now it's time for me to try to open that door as well. I can face anything as long as I _know_."

Kaiba nodded, silently conceding the point. I felt as if I'd just won a victory, although I wasn't sure over what. I cupped the puzzle in my hands. Kaiba was wrong, I thought. He had said that our bodies were mere holograms. That much was true. But the puzzle felt real. For an instant it seemed to shine, like a beacon that could draw my adrift memories home. Then the nature of the summoning changed, became harsher, more insistent; it felt unfriendly. I didn't say anything to Kaiba. I knew all too well what his response would be.

When I had first held it, the puzzle had felt warm. Abruptly, it turned blazingly hot. I let go with a gasp and looked at my hands, but they were unsinged. Kaiba gave a matching gasp as flames sprung up around us.

"The flames of Kul Elna," I said.

"What?" he asked.

I shook my head, confused. "I don't know. That phrase just popped into my head. I don't even know what it means, or where Kul Elna is."

"We can find out later. Right now survival is the main priority," Kaiba said.

The blaze followed us as we ran through the ancient town that had suddenly appeared, as if it had come into being only to burn. Its small ramshackle houses fueled the flames. The fire was a living thing; it had a mind of its own – one bent on destroying us. It leapt from rooftop to rooftop, chasing us down. Even the desert sands at our feet didn't stop it. I called in Torrential Rain to try and drown its rage. That didn't work either. The fire rolled over the downpour as if its fury had waves of its own. I felt a tingle when the blaze finally caught us in its grasp. I closed my eyes against the expected pain.

…And then we were in Kaiba's computer lab once more. I took off my helmet and climbed out of the pod. I faced Kaiba.

"What was that? What did it mean?" I asked.

"You tell me. It's your nightmare," Kaiba answered soberly.

"It's one more thing I need to remember," I said.

* * *

__  
**Thanks to Bnomiko not just for the wonderful betaing but also for listening to me obsess over titles and outlines, and just for making the whole thing so much fun.**   


**Acknowledgements:** One nice thing about starting a story is you get to thank your friends for their patience. In addition to Bnomiko, I'd like to thank Kagemihari and Splintered Star for encouragement, friendship and just for listening. Happy belated birthday, Kagi! Thanks to Halowing and Mishiko Shinsei for title suggestions.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** My stories seem to sometimes come with stories attached. This one begins quite a while ago with a poor, little, baby plot bunny – the first idea for a story I had that didn't revolve around a much cooler version of myself, who happened to be a duelist who also happened to have been friends with Seto at the orphanage… believe me, you don't want to know…

Anyway, when this little shivering plot bunny showed up, the one thing I knew was that he was part of a larger story. And the other thing I was equally sure of was that I had no clue what this story was or how to tell it. So being the sensible person I am, I turned him loose and hoped he'd scamper off. But it turns out he was a crafty little plot bunny, because he bided his time and came back with a whole troop of brothers. I looked them over skeptically, checked them for fleas… and realized, somewhat to my surprise, that they actually made a story.

So here we are. I hope you enjoy it.

Comments would be adored…


	2. The Duelist's Genesis

**MANGA NOTE:** The relationship between _both_ Kaiba brothers and Yami in the early manga is nothing short of disastrous. Initially, Kaiba steals Sugoroku's BEWD from Yugi. Yami challenges him to a shadow game (or penalty game) to get it back. Yami wins when Kaiba summons the BEWD, but the dragon destroys itself rather than follow his commands. Yami inflicts a penalty game on Kaiba where he is trapped in the illusion that he is in the Duel Monsters world and is killed by his own monsters.

Mokuba, eager to prove himself to his brother and desperate to protect him from Yami, challenges Yugi to his favorite game, Capmon. He threatens Yugi until Yami appears. Although Mokuba cheats, Yami (surprise!) wins. As part of the resulting penalty game Mokuba believes he's being sealed into a Capmon capsule. When Kaiba creates Death-T, Mokuba insists on being one of Yami's challengers. Kaiba misreads this as a personal attack on him, and when Mokuba loses he forces him to go through the Death Simulation chamber he had designed for Yami. Yami rescues Mokuba, and defeats Kaiba by summoning Exodia. He shatters Kaiba's heart, giving Kaiba the opportunity to rebuild it without the darkness that was destroying him.

 **AU TIMELINE REMINDER:** This story begins after Alcatraz and takes off in its own direction. The DOMA, Grand Prix, and (especially) AE arcs do not exist in this story.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 2: THE DEVIL IN THE DETAILS**

 _Chess is a game of regicide; for the game to end, a king must die. What does it mean then, when a son plays his father? In even the most loving of families, there's a moment of glee in a child's eyes as he calls out "Checkmate!" as he commits not just regicide, but patricide as well. And while we'd like to think that the moment when a father metaphorically destroys his son contains a drop of regret, there's a note of triumph, too. For in some ways, chess has it right – fathers and sons are bound not just (hopefully) by chains of love, but by ties of rivalry as well._

 **GOZABURO'S NARRATIVE**

The law of unintended consequences…

The one law more absolute than death and far less escapable.

It had seemed so simple. I'd adopted a boy. I'd thought he'd be the perfect tool. Young enough to be malleable, angry enough to eagerly follow the road I was laying at his feet, arrogant enough to think he was building it himself.

Intelligent enough to make breaking him a challenge.

I'd let him bring along the younger one. Allowing the little mouse to scurry into my house behind his more talented brother had seemed like such an unimportant decision. I'd thought destroying the bond between them would be the work of a moment, something to do on route to the more entertaining challenge of crushing my adopted son.

It had been a fatal error. I'd thought myself above the law of unintended consequences, but Seto could never have beaten me without Mokuba.

All that was about to change. It had taken a long time, but I'd been proven right. The brat truly was Seto's weakness. Seto had wanted to play a game with him. After all these years he still needed his little brother by his side. He should have remembered; I'd certainly tried hard enough to beat it into his head: the strong never need anyone. He'd refused to listen and payment was about to come due.

It was ironic. Every change Seto had made to accommodate his brat of a brother had allowed me entrance here as well. He'd designed a program where thoughts were given shape. His search went out, drawing information into his virtual world, seeking the avatars stored online. What would you call me? I'd lived in electronic limbo for years. Seto had seen me die, twice, but he should have remembered: nothing ever gets deleted in cyberspace.

He had even instructed this virtual world to adapt itself to individual brainwaves, but you don't need a body to have a brainwave. Unintentionally, Seto had given me a place to hide, to grow strong. Most of all he'd given me a new battlefield where I could defeat him once and for all, a new classroom in which to teach him his final lesson.

My adopted son had beaten me once at my own game; he had beaten me once at his. But this was the third and final time. I'd tried to mold him in my image as if that would give me immortality. Now I had a more direct way to escape death and my adopted son had been the one to put it into my hands. This world was, in many ways, similar to the one my scientists had created, the one my real son had refined. I'd planned to steal Seto's body and rejoin the world back then. That plan hadn't changed. The next time Seto came to check on his game, _I_ would be the one leaving in his place.

I felt like I was being watched. I waited for my greatest disappointment to appear. He'd followed me into this world, looking for something… approval perhaps, or forgiveness, or some sign that he was still my son. Noa had forgotten, just as Seto had, that the strong need nothing, especially nothing weak enough to die. And unlike the last time, he wasn't going to interfere with my plans. Not again.

I scanned the landscape. I'd just decided no one was there when I heard a voice behind me. It was too deep and too used to being in command to belong to my son.

"Interesting. It seems neither of us is alone here."

I turned to see who else my adopted son had unintentionally invited in. Whatever the newcomer was, he wasn't human. At a guess, he looked like something out of Seto's stupid card game. He looked a little like the Exodia Necross I'd played, except he was even taller. His height didn't matter except as a negotiating tactic. A rocket missile is tall too; it's still only a tool. And a bullet is far smaller than a man, but it can kill the mightiest.

Right now, his height was annoying. It forced me to crane my neck to talk to him or address my remarks to his balls. And he hadn't proved he had any, yet.

"Who the hell are you?" I asked.

"Does it matter? If you need a name, mine is Zorc Necrophades. More importantly, like you, I'm someone with a grudge," he said.

"Against that snake I adopted?" I wasn't surprised my adopted son had made enemies.

"No. Against his companion. Why would I waste my time on the priest? The pharaoh is my enemy – and this will be the site of our final battle."

He wasn't making any sense. That didn't matter. For all his size, he was unimportant. I could guess who he was referring to anyway… the kid with the ugly hair and strange eyes who'd helped Seto escape me. I owed him for that, but he was unimportant too – so far down on my list as to be invisible. I could take care of him once I got out.

My new companion surveyed the landscape like this world was a piece of real estate and he'd just signed the deed. "My servant has done well," he said with satisfaction.

I grunted. It might be useful to find out just how many of these cartoon clowns were in here.

"I didn't think you would know enough of virtual worlds to be able to get into one unaided," I observed.

He smiled, a slight thinning of his lips. "All doors are open to a thief."

"A thief?" I asked.

"I had the foresight to bind one to my service 3,000 years ago. He stole his way into the artifacts the pharaoh and his councilors were so proud of. The pharaoh was obliging enough to carry him into this world when he entered it while wearing the puzzle." He shrugged. "It's an irrelevancy. What matters is that we have a common enemy – or rather enemies. It would make sense for us to join forces."

I frowned. It was irrelevant all right, but that wasn't the point. Power is the ability to set the agenda and he wasn't controlling mine.

"It would make sense if you had something I want. You don't. I can get out of here without your help," I said.

"I doubt it. You can feel it, can't you? That what happens here can spill out into the outside world," he said.

"Of course I can. It's how I'm leaving this joint."

He laughed. "And yet, you're not questioning how any of this is possible. Without my magic, this would merely be a more sophisticated form of non-existence, a more intricately detailed limbo. But permanence can only be achieved through a penalty game, and that requires a challenge."

I tried not to laugh in his face. Challenges had gone out of style ages ago. I'd tried that in the last virtual world we'd competed in. I'd failed. Ambushes were much more efficient.

"I don't give a damn how this world was created. All I care about is using it to my advantage," I said. "It's been a long game, but it's time for my adopted son to lay his king on its side and concede everything to me."

I smiled, anticipating my ultimate victory. Family… my corporation… even life itself… they'd all failed me.

Vengeance endures.

* * *

 **MOKUBA'S NARRATIVE**

"Warning… Five minutes to detonation… Warning…"

Nisama and me were in the basement at Alcatraz. Just like after the final duel of the Battle City Tournament, the whole island was set to blow up. Alarm bells were clanging, red lights were flashing all around us. I raced for the elevator then looked back, panicked.

"Come on Nisama!" I yelled.

He just stood there, frozen in his tracks. I couldn't get him to move.

"Come on!" I screamed again.

He walked forward slowly. We finally reached the elevator. The doors opened. Isono was waiting inside. Nisama pushed me into his arms.

"I lost. Losers die. Wasn't that the old man's last lesson to me? I'm staying. Get my brother out of here," Nisama said to Isono. "That's an order."

I couldn't see Isono but I knew he nodded. His grip on me tightened. I yelled at him to let go. I kicked him. I tried biting his arms, but my brother had given him an order and there was nothing I could do. The elevator doors slammed shut, separating us.

As soon as the doors closed, Isono vanished. A skeleton, with torn shreds of flesh still clinging to his bones, was gripping me instead. I almost gagged on his breath. The walls of the elevator had turned to unbreakable glass. I was in a Death Simulation Chamber again. Another skeleton, this one with steel arrows for eyes watched, gloating, as a dinosaur with a crocodile snout came closer. His jaws opened wide enough to crush my head. These monsters weren't in any card data base. They'd come from my brother's imagination. They were going to kill me. Nisama was going to let me die.

"Nisama! No!" I screamed.

I woke up with a gasp as Nisama ran into the room.

"Are you okay?" he asked, sitting on my bed and hugging me.

"I had a nightmare," I admitted.

He pressed his lips together. He didn't ask, not immediately. I could see him bracing himself.

I couldn't tell him it'd been about Death-T, even though I was sure he already knew. I considered saying that it had been about that penalty game I'd played with Yugi. He might believe that. I still had nightmares about it sometimes, so it wouldn't exactly be a lie. I'd lost my gang that day, as well as the game with Yugi. They'd turned on me after they'd seen me screaming – and worse, crying – over nothing for about an hour. It had been just as well, I knew that now. But it had hurt at the time, and not just because they'd roughed me up. But Nisama kind of, sort of, trusted Yugi – more than I'd ever seen him trust anyone but me. I didn't want to shake that up by reminding him of stuff.

Nisama was going to ask in another moment. I had to come up with something. I could tell him I'd had a nightmare about our parents. That was safe; it wouldn't bring up any bad memories, just an empty feeling and that was okay. I opened my mouth, then shut it just as fast. Lying about your dead parents to your brother had to be a new kind of low.

"Was it about…" Nisama asked slowly.

"It was nothing," I interrupted quickly, before he could finish his sentence.

Nisama looked at me. I tried to smooth out my breathing.

"You're awake. It's okay. Nightmares aren't…" His voice trailed off.

"Real," I finished for him.

He nodded.

It was an old nightmare. I'd had it just about every night after Death-T. I'd wake up, drenched in sweat, and run into Nisama's room where I'd find him in a wheel chair; his eyes wide open and staring at nothing, and that had been even worse. I'd sit there next to him asking "Why" over and over. But I knew the answer. He'd let in a darkness so bad his mind had had to be shattered to break him free of its grip. He'd let go of everything, even me.

I'd sit there all night, trying to convince myself that the hand I was squeezing had moved, knowing all the while it hadn't… clinging to Yugi's words that Nisama would return and be my big brother again. I'd tell Nisama that no matter how long it took I'd wait for him. I'd sit there saying it over and over, until I was sleepy enough to crawl into his unused bed. And then I'd wake up to see the sun hitting his unmoving body and the only thing I was sure of was that I'd be back here again, after the next nightmare, holding his hand and trying to pretend it was all a dream, when I knew it wasn't.

"Nightmares seem real sometimes," I said tentatively. "Even when you wake up."

Nisama nodded again. "I know," he said. "When I built Death-T…" He paused then continued, "I thought that would make the nightmares stop. It didn't. When I built Alcatraz, I thought if I could just win there everything – the anger, the hatred – would go away. Why isn't it ever that simple?" he said, more to himself than to me.

Now it was my turn to nod. "I thought if I just tried harder, you know, back then, everything would work out." It was the closest we'd ever come to talking about the time just after Gozaburo's death.

I waited to see if he'd clam up. He didn't. He ran his hand through his hair, then looked away and said, "It wasn't you, Mokuba. Don't ever think that. I was the one who should have…" His voice trailed off. He probably had too many "should haves" to finish the sentence. I wished I could get a good look at his face but his head was down and he was still turned slightly away.

"And now, I don't know how to…" His voice trailed off again. I probably could have finished that sentence for him as well. I waited to see if he'd continue. To my surprise, he did.

"I want to be a better brother to you," he said. "That's a prize worth chasing."

As much as I wanted him to keep talking, I couldn't let that pass unchallenged. "You're the best brother ever!" I insisted.

He smiled briefly at that, but he shook his head too. "I've made so many mistakes. I want the future to be different."

"That's why you made this virtual reality game, isn't it?" I asked.

He nodded. "I always won because I had everything tapped out in advance. I could control everything – the challenges, the stakes, what my opponents were thinking, how they'd respond… I was always one step ahead. But with the other Yugi, suddenly that wasn't enough anymore. But what else is there?"

"It's okay if you can't do it on your own. I'm here to help," I said.

He nodded again, but he didn't look happy. If anything he looked kind of ashamed. Somehow, I'd said the wrong thing. I retreated to the one topic that was always safe.

"You always win," I reminded him.

"Not always," he said, but he straightened up and that slightly embarrassed look was gone.

"You always win when it counts," I reminded him.

" _We_ always win when it counts. You're right Mokuba, I'm proud to fight with you at my side. Maybe that's why this virtual world didn't work the way I planned," he added, talking more to himself than to me again. "I can't seem to control it and learn from it at the same time."

"Well, we're going to play it together, right?" I said, suddenly sleepy again. My brother was here. We were fine. He was talking. Death-T was far behind us.

"Always. I promise," he answered.

He lay down next to me. I wasn't ready to be alone. The nightmare was over, but we both knew I wanted to fall asleep to the sound of his voice. He started listing the latest revisions to our game, then ran down the list of tasks he had for the morning, his voice softening to a drone. It was soothing listening to him outline it all. He'd added Non-Player Characters. I couldn't wait to see what he'd come up with this time. He thought they were a waste of storage space so he'd give them snarky names he always had to change before releasing the games to the public.

"I'm doing the final check of the system tomorrow. It'll be ready to play by the time I pick you up from school," he said as he reached the last item on his list.

I smiled and shut my eyes as if that would make tomorrow get here quicker. We were a team and my brother was right: nightmares weren't real.

* * *

 **KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

I couldn't wait for the end of Mokuba's school day. Mokuba had helped me build Kaiba Land, he'd been at my side at every tournament, he'd watched me duel for years. But it'd been a long time since we'd played a game _together_. Not since we'd played chess at the orphanage, or in those first days after our arrival at the mansion. Gozaburo had destroyed all the games we'd brought with us that first evening. It hadn't stopped us; we'd made up our own. Then I'd forgotten everything except how to win.

Solitary victories weren't enough. I wanted to do this with Mokuba. We'd always been a team. I'd forgotten that, too. But being my partner had mattered so much to Mokuba, he'd followed me into Death-T. Now I wanted this game to be perfect for him. I smiled, imagining the look on his face when he entered my virtual world, when we faced it together.

I'd left plenty of time for the final test run. It was a formality, anyway – or it should have been. But I knew, from the moment I entered my virtual world, that something was wrong. I scanned the landscape, trying to assess the changes. It was supposed to be daylight, but the sky was darker, more like twilight. I looked at the tree branches above me and frowned. The leaves were slightly misshapen, faintly grotesque. They repelled me. I expected my virtual world to change, to adapt. That was its nature. But it should still feel like it was mine; the changes should reflect my personality, be powered by my brainwaves. After all, I was the only player in here today.

Or was I?

The question was unexpected. But once asked, it demanded an answer.

I looked at the trees again. They reminded me of my last, disastrous attempt to create a virtual world, the one my traitorous Board of Directors had hijacked and had tried to turn into a prison, as if there was a cage that could hold me. I looked around, half expecting to see Armed Ninjas attacking again, then shook my head, annoyed. Now if they appeared I wouldn't know if they'd come in answer to my thoughts or someone else's.

I looked at the ground, at the deep, almost purple shadows cast by the trees. They reminded me of being trapped by Pegasus at Duelists' Kingdom… they reminded me of the other Yugi. They reminded me of the Shadow Realm, or whatever the hell that place had been. Those experiences hadn't been part of this game before.

Standing here wasn't going to do any good. I needed answers and there was only one way to go – forward – to get them. I was moving warily now, more and more convinced that whatever world I was in wasn't solely mine any longer.

When I'd left Alcatraz, I'd told Yami I was off to find a new battlefield. I'd designed this game to do just that. But it felt like some old business had followed me in here. A surge of adrenaline and anger pumped through my veins, clearing my head – or clouding it. Gozaburo's face, laughing at me, just as I'd seen it in the sky in that damned virtual world he'd created and then trapped us in, flashed in front of my eyes for a second. I heard him say, "Still so cocky, boy?" I growled. This was _my_ game. It shouldn't feel like a trap. I hoped something would show up here soon so I could kill it.

They moved silently, barely rustling the leaves on the forest floor.

Armed Ninjas.

I grimaced. Their appearance told me nothing. I'd been thinking about them. I'd fought them here before. I could have conjured them up on my own. They were moving through the woods, trying to surround me. The game was capable of adapting. It had called up the memory of the last time they'd attacked, of the way my Blue Eyes White Dragon had taken them out. It figured that there wasn't enough room for it here. But my Blue Eyes White Dragon could fly. I called in my dragon, let it rain fire down on them in an arc. I watched with satisfaction as not just my enemies, but those unfamiliar, misshapen trees caught flame, their branches now yellow and orange as if a fiery autumn had come early. It reminded me of Pegasus's latest cards, the ones I'd been working on before coming here.

The fire almost had a life of its own; I thought I heard screams, just like in that village Yami and I had ended up in. We'd gotten caught there, but that didn't matter. I was exiting anyway. I'd reset the game and try again.

Except I couldn't.

"Unhide codes," I called out, scanning the lines that had obediently appeared, looking for the latest glitch.

For once I'd let myself get distracted. The Armed Ninjas had been a feint. And I'd been so busy reviewing each line of computer code, I didn't notice Injection Fairy's arrival until it was too late.

I tried to spin out of reach, but I was a second too slow. The Injection Fairy's hypodermic needle, its point as sharp as a stiletto, plunged into my hand. I snatched it and whirled around. I wanted to stab her with her own damn giant syringe, but she disappeared. My hand stung. I raised it to my mouth, surprised at the taste of something bitter along with the familiar salty tang of my own blood. It tasted of defeat, of hatred, of all the things I'd build this game to try and erase from my soul.

My hand was throbbing; pain was starting to shoot up my arm, carried through my system by my own blood supply. I went to check the safety system, but the codes had disappeared again. I'd have to follow-up once I got out. Actual pain would make the game less commercially viable. Most people, fools that they were, didn't get that even in games, there was always a price to be paid for carelessness.

I exited. This time there was no resistance, as if the game had accomplished some purpose of its own. My virtual world had always been harsh; this was the first time it had felt alien. Even the wind in the trees had seemed to whistle mockingly; the breeze had Gozaburo's voice. I needed to think, but it was becoming unexpectedly difficult.

I got out of the VR pod and leaned against its side, mildly disoriented. There was a roar in my ears as though I was still in the middle of a battle, not alone in the quiet test lab. I headed back to my office hoping the short walk would clear my head.

It didn't. It just made me madder. Nothing was adding up. Back at my desk, I stared at my computer, flipping from window to window, hopping to find something that made sense. But the familiar programs were suddenly meaningless.

" _What are you doing wasting your talent making games? Why be the CEO of a gaming empire when you could be so much more?"_

I'd never felt that way. KaibaLand was my dream… it had been my dream my whole life. And yet… this voice was familiar; it was part of me.

" _Why plan personal wars that leave no corpses?"_

I shook my head as if I could shake the voice out into the air. When that didn't help, I turned determinedly back to my monitor, refocusing on my work, trying to block everything else out. I needed to concentrate, anyway.

I had a lot to do before it was time to pick the worthless brat up from school.

* * *

 _  
**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter and helping me make it as clear as possible.**   
_

**Acknowledgements:** Thanks to Halowing for the title suggestion for this chapter.

 **Thanks to frenziedpanda7** for catching the mistake I made originally by mentioning Dartz when Kaiba thinks about the Shadow Realm so quickly! I've corrected that paragraph and appreciate your letting me know so I could fix it.

 **Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my LJ account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted before when a new chapter is updated. As per FFNet's policy I can no longer post responses at the end of each chapter.

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** If there was a Mokuba Fan Club, I'd be a member. He's an evil little taser-wielding gremlin in the early manga – but at the same time, he's a sympathetic little gremlin because he's so obviously desperate to protect his big brother. And like Kaiba, he has a penchant for making truly horrible decisions along the way.

 _Comments would be adored…_


	3. Legacy of Darkness

**MANGA/DEATH-T NOTE:** In their first meeting, Yami inflicts a penalty game on Kaiba where he is trapped in the illusion that he is in the Duel Monsters world and is killed by his own monsters. Kaiba creates Death-T to avenge this loss. Mokuba insists on being one of Yami's challengers. Kaiba misreads this as a personal attack on him, and when Mokuba loses he forces him to go through the Death Simulation chamber he had designed for Yami. Yami rescues Mokuba, and defeats Kaiba by summoning Exodia. He shatters Kaiba's heart, giving Kaiba the opportunity to rebuild it without the darkness that was destroying him.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 3: LEGACY OF DARKNESS**

 _Stories, like dreams, have their own language. Googling the word "father" turns up an armful of heartwarming quotes. But as you click on the links, a more divided picture emerges. The image becomes one of power and control… hopefully a benign dictatorship as a father guides his son through the mysteries of baiting a fishing line or driving a car, teaching him until he is old enough to stand on his own feet._

 _But it's wise to remember… Darth Vader is a father, too._

 **KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

I was in my office. I wasn't surprised Gozaburo was back in my head, literally this time. I'd been holding him at bay for three days now, ever since Injection Fairy had pumped him into my system in my virtual world. One moment of carelessness... and I'd made it so easy for him to infect me. Not that it had ever been hard for Gozaburo to enter my mind.

I was the one in control of myself, though… barely. That was familiar too. Gozaburo was waiting. He could rest; I couldn't. And if my control slipped, even for a moment… I snapped open my locket and shut it as quickly.

"Still worried about that brat?" Gozaburo asked from his vantage point inside my head.

I grimaced. It had taken years for his voice to fade. Now, it was back as if it'd never been gone.

"Worried about what I might do to him when I get control of your body? It'd be easy wouldn't it? It's not like he'd be expecting his brother to try to kill him _again,_ " he taunted.

I swallowed the impulse to say, _'Leave Mokuba out of this!'_ It didn't matter. Gozaburo heard it anyway.

"You might as well say it. I already know the mouse is your weakness."

I felt as helpless as I had in the first days of our association. I'd learned then: to proclaim something's importance was to risk losing it. I thought of my games going up in flames in the fireplace on my first night at the mansion. Gozaburo had stood behind me. His goons had held me in place and forced me to watch.

After that, I'd tried to hide everything else that mattered. When that had failed, I'd tried to pretend that nothing did. But that was a loser's strategy. I might as well have stood up and announced that I was unable to protect the things that were crucial to me. I refused to be that powerless again. I refused to pretend that nothing mattered.

"Mokuba isn't a weakness," I said evenly.

"I see you've given up trying to hide your transparent secrets. There are no surprises between us, anyway," he said.

"I'll have to see if I can manufacture one."

"I can wait," he crooned. "I'm going to have it all soon. I've been in your head ever since the day you walked into my house. This isn't the first time I've taken over."

"Not happening again," I gritted out.

Abruptly he switched tactics. "The only reason I've gotten this far is because you're weak. How can you expect to defend your own mind when you've turned your back on the things that gave you power, made you into a person that could topple me. Look at what you've been doing – trying to rid yourself of your anger and hatred. Those are the things that gave you strength. You feel it too, don't you, boy?"

I did.

"You're throwing away your strongest weapons – and for what? Because your rival told you to? Why are you giving him this power over you? Didn't it occur to you that maybe he wants you to be weak?"

It had. Many times. I'd kept going forward anyway.

Here was the true danger – not that Gozaburo could batter me down or overpower me – he'd never been able to manage that. But the longer he talked… the longer I listened… the more reasonable everything he said sounded.

Gozaburo caught my thought and laughed. "Just like old times. I never made you do anything. I just honed what was already inside of you and unleashed it on the rest of the world. I profited, but so did you, boy."

He laughed again. "Do you remember the first time you saw one of your weapons in action? Are you going to pretend you weren't practically coming at the sight?"

I knew what he was referring to. I closed my eyes and remembered seeing the island I'd ended up renaming Alcatraz approaching in the plane's windshield. Kaiba Corporation's weapons testing grounds were on a man-made atoll next to it. Gozaburo and I had gotten off the plane side by side. He had worn his usual business suit; I was in a white school uniform even though I didn't go to school. The height difference between us was great enough to make it look like an ordinary father and son outing.

Gozaburo had handed me a pair of binoculars. "You designed the missile we're testing today. You might as well see it in action. Maybe that'll stop you from whining like a girl who's had her cherry popped and who's just realized there's no getting it back."

I ignored Gozaburo. I hadn't said a word to him since the confrontation in his office when I'd learned that he was planning to turn my designs into weapons. There was no point in further advertising my own weakness by protesting something that I was powerless to prevent.

We stood side by side and watched as my missile dove through the air, a streak of man-made lightning. It detonated on impact in a giant burst of white light, as iridescent as a dragon's attack. The flames came after; a collage of moving, living, burning color, scorching the atoll, devouring the air.

Gozaburo was right.

It was beautiful.

I loved it.

I'd seen that flash of pure energy and light and understood: that missile was me, it was as much a part of my soul as the game I would have designed in its place. That was _my_ rage brought to life. That was _my_ despair exploding from within, being carried away on the winds.

And that's why I had to stop it. _I_ was the only one who had the right to say how my rage would be channeled – and it wouldn't be as a product to enrich my enemy. I could feel Gozaburo nodding along, even now. That was a reason he could understand. There was more to my determination to stop him, of course. I guess I should be glad any sign of remorse was such an alien thought to him; he'd never been able to follow it.

Back then, I hadn't any doubts that losing meant death, and I'd used my own life as an ante too often to have even an iota of sympathy for anyone who'd done the same and lost. But this wasn't a contest. You can't out-think or out-fight a missile. I'd closed my eyes against the blinding light of my weapon, and in my head I'd seen children as young as Mokuba trying to out-run its path. And this missile was the simplest and cleanest of the things I'd come up with. Designs that Gozaburo had produced and sold to the highest bidder.

That was another thing Gozaburo had been right about. I had no innocence left to lose.

Gozaburo had laughed at me then. I heard the same crude braying now, snapping me back to the present.

"How kind of you to let me revisit the scene of one of my triumphs in our little game, just when I'm about to claim the final one," Gozaburo said mockingly.

"Keep telling yourself that. It was also the day I knew I had to destroy you, whatever it took," I answered.

"Even if it meant turning into a second rate copy of me?" he jeered. "Tell me boy, did you fight me so hard because the thought of slaughter bothered you, or because it was simply another way to defy me?"

"Does it matter?" I asked, suddenly too tired to hide the weariness in my thoughts.

"Not to me. It seems to make a difference to you. You want to know why you let me in so damn easily every time? It's because you're just looking for an excuse. You're not fighting me. You're fighting your own nature. And sooner or later, you'll surrender."

It took all my willpower to keep from nodding along. Ever since Death-T… had I been trying to find myself, or desperately trying to deny who I was? Was that why I hadn't been able to win a game I'd designed to reflect my soul? Because I didn't have one worth the winning in the first place?

It had gotten hard to think, as if Gozaburo was sucking up all the available air. I squeezed my locket so tightly that the edge cut into my palm. I stared in shock at the drops of red staining the frame. I flipped the locket open again, my gaze on Mokuba's face. He'd known me longer than anyone. He trusted me. I drew in slow, calming breaths. I'd fallen into this trap once before. Gozaburo was casting it skillfully and from inside my head this time, but the snare had remained the same.

I could feel Gozaburo's baffled fury as I smiled back at Mokuba's face. He was always impatient around things he didn't understand. That had been my salvation – or whatever salvation I'd managed to hang on to.

I did the only thing I could to clear my mind. I turned to my computer and started flipping through duel monsters. It was the only thing that had ever quieted his voice in my head.

I put the cards in a random shuffle and started calling up two hands – one for me and one for an imaginary opponent. I wasn't paying attention, but the task served its purpose. Gozaburo's voice was momentarily silent. I was myself again, whoever the hell that was.

I looked at the last round of cards. I'd drawn Devil's Sanctuary. I grunted. I could use a sanctuary all right. I glanced back at the monitor and froze. My computerized opponent was holding the five cards that made up Exodia. I could hear the other Yugi's voice again, casting out the darkness, just as he had at Death-T. I could feel my soul shattering from the shock. I'd been in pieces, but I'd also been whole for the first time in years.

I stared at the cards on my monitor, a plan coming together in my mind. It was one that Gozaburo would never expect. It would never have occurred to me before I'd met Yugi or his partner. It was simple, perfect, even. All it would cost me was the last remnants of my pride. It'd mean abasing myself before my rival, letting him in far enough to help. It meant trusting him. I couldn't contact him directly; it meant having faith that he'd understand my message… it meant admitting we knew each other that well.

Once I wouldn't have been able to do it. After all, I had a perfectly serviceable back-up plan that would accomplish my goal. But I wanted to live. I wanted this over. I wanted my life back. I no longer knew if that was a weakness.

I'd managed to block Gozaburo out of my thoughts temporarily, but it wouldn't last. I raced through the plan, hating it even as I perfected the details. The other Yugi knew what I was capable of. If he thought I was a danger, he'd take action. He wouldn't hesitate; he hadn't the last time, and I was counting on him to be just as predictable as ever.

Putting my soul in someone else's hands was such a different kind of risk than the ones I normally took I knew Gozaburo would never see it coming. But I wasn't the person Gozaburo thought I was… the person he'd trained me to be. I was stronger than that. The other Yugi had seen that. It was time to prove it. I could make myself trust the other Yugi; I had to. Mokuba was counting on me. I would hold on to that, even if I had to throw everything else away.

I stared at the five cards of Exodia again, before closing the window on my monitor. I hadn't seen them lined up in a row like that – not since the other Yugi had expelled the darkness from my soul at Death-T. Yugi – either Yugi – would probably have started babbling about the heart of the cards as if fate or some equally non-existent god had arranged for their presence on my monitor. If I _had_ thought Exodia's appearance was the result of anything more than a random shuffle of the deck; that it was the work of some unknown and probably malicious deity instead, I would have distrusted it on sight.

I could feel Gozaburo coming back, his curiosity piqued. He realized I'd briefly shut him out of my thoughts. It was time to distract him. I was pretty sure I knew something he didn't – and that always drove him crazy. In the brief moment before Injection Fairy had attacked, I could have sworn I'd seen a row of hieroglyphics hidden among the long lines of coding.

"You don't know as much about that virtual world as you think you do – and knowledge is power," I observed.

"Don't play the fool. I was the one to change its coding!" he snarled.

"You weren't alone," I answered, smugly. He'd taken the bait.

"How did you know that, boy?"

I shrugged, knowing the dismissive gesture would annoy him just as much as my refusal to answer. Then something occurred to me: I'd been so busy fending Gozaburo off, I hadn't considered whether _he_ had knowledge that could be useful to me. I smirked. Gozaburo had been crashing my thoughts for three days now. Maybe it was time to return the favor… to see how deeply I could burrow into what was left of his consciousness. Maybe it was time for a forced merger…

I stopped. More accurately, I froze. Gozaburo was being very quiet now – he knew what was hanging in the balance – but I could feel him waiting in anticipation. That I was considering tearing down whatever walls were still left between us showed just how far things had gotten. For a moment I'd forgotten that all playing Gozaburo's game had ever done was to make it easier for him to win.

I drew in a deep breath, smiling as I felt Gozaburo's anger. In our games, that was usually a good sign. It meant I had beaten him again.

"You call up that program, right now – so I can get a look at it!" he yelled, frustrated that I'd baulked him of an easy victory. Predictably, he jumped from persuasion to force, trying to seize control of my hands, trying to make them move over my keyboard.

"No," I said calmly. "And you can't make me. I'm in control of this body." To prove my point, I leaned back and stretched out my legs on the desk.

"You are for now," he said. "But what happens when you sleep?"

"You'll be asleep too."

"Are you sure?"

I wasn't of course. It was why I hadn't slept so far. I couldn't risk it.

Gozaburo had trained me well. I knew my limits. I could stay awake and fully functional for at least three days, in control of myself for four. I could hang on long enough to execute my back up plan for five. I'd used almost three days so far. If I had any doubts about my next course of action, they'd just been erased. Time had become a more valuable commodity than pride.

 **  
**

* * *

**MOKUBA'S NARRATIVE**

I'd forgotten what it was like to be afraid of my brother. Four days ago, he'd dropped me off at school as usual. When he'd picked me up later that afternoon, he'd been a stranger.

"Are we going to go play your VR game?" I'd asked as I jumped into the car.

"Games are for kids," he said flatly. "The only game that matters is the one played for life and death."

I looked at him. His eyes were glazed over. His knuckles were white as he gripped the steering wheel. I didn't say anything until we reached Kaiba Corporation. He jumped out of the car at the front entrance, leaving the keys in it for someone else to park as usual. But he didn't slow down so I could walk with him. I frowned as I followed Nisama up to his office. Something was different and, whatever it was, I didn't like it.

"Did the safety system work?" I asked, knowing that would have been his final check. Maybe he was just frustrated or annoyed that it wasn't finished yet.

His eyes seemed to clear as he looked at me. He looked even more serious than usual. Grim, that was the word.

"There is no safety. I was a fool to forget that." He ran a hand through his hair. The gesture was familiar. So were the words. He'd said them a lot, right after our adoptive father had died.

"I have a lot to do… to take care of," he said as he turned to his computer and became absorbed in his work. It probably looked normal. But it wasn't. Nisama was ignoring me.

He didn't drive me to school the next day or pick me up afterwards. The chauffer did that. The cook fed me dinner. I put myself to bed. I told myself that everything would be back to normal when I woke up, but it wasn't. I didn't see Nisama all day. I tried, but he left every room I entered, pausing only long enough to tell me to keep out of his way. That's when I tried telling myself that maybe he was just all wrapped up in his latest project – but I couldn't make myself believe it.

By the third day I knew I had to find out what was going on. I hacked into his account on the KC server. I left just as quickly. Everything was booby trapped. If I did anything, the system would come crashing down. The one thing I did see was the files on Nisama's old weapons. I looked at all the booby traps again. Computer coding is as personal as a signature, as individual as a DNA profile – and this was Nisama's. Whatever was going on, he was doing it himself.

I thought about it all the next day. By evening all I knew was that I hated myself. Nisama was in trouble, and here I was pretending everything would work out when I knew we were way past that. The thing was, Nisama was everything to me. And he was acting like he'd forgotten I even existed, avoiding me, then pushing me away, just like in the days before Death-T. I hadn't known what to do then, either. Just thinking about it, I wanted to run and hide. But Nisama had raised me better than that. By the time he got home, I was ready to be the kind of brother he needed me to be.

"What's going on?" I asked as soon as he walked in the door. He looked so cold, so much like he used to back then, I was afraid to tell him flat out I'd been on his server account. "You can talk to me. I'm your brother."

"I have no brother. Why don't you ever learn that? It would make things so much simpler." He started laughing.

"Nisama… please… stop it. I'm scared. I need you."

My words seemed to shudder through him.

"You don't need anyone. Especially me. Learn to cut your losses like a good businessman should," he answered.

"Whatever's going on, I can help!" I insisted.

"Just like you did at Death-T? Remember how well that turned out?" he sneered.

"I didn't help. Not in the right way. I know that now," I said.

He laughed again. "Be logical, Mokuba. What could a little mouse like you, all on your own, possibly do to help me? Remember… you lost at Death-T, just like I said you would."

I stared at him. I was remembering. We'd _both_ been beaten at Death-T, and by the same person. I should of thought of it earlier. Maybe I couldn't fix this, but I knew someone who could.

"Yeah," I said. "Just like then. I'm going to get help. I promise. Trust me."

I could have sworn he looked relieved for a second, that he gave me a hint of a nod. But then he spoke, and I realized I'd been kidding myself again.

"Don't make me laugh," he sneered. "Only fools believe in anything beyond themselves. Isn't that what we learned? You can hope for a miracle if you want," he leaned down and hissed in my ear, "just so long as you run and don't look back."

Was that a threat or an instruction? I couldn't tell anymore. Either way, I obeyed – I turned tail and ran.

"Get lost and stay there, Mokuba… my last bit of brotherly advice is that lightning rarely strikes twice, and you don't want to be around if it does," he yelled after me.

He'd been like this once before. He'd promised it'd never happen again. I'd believed him. It looked like we'd both been wrong. It was dark out and his laughter followed me down the streets as I ran for help.

 _  
**  
**_

* * *

_  
_

_  
**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter through all its revisions.**   
_

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** In a way meeting Gozaburo was a perfect storm for Seto. He was already susceptible to a lot of what Gozaburo would later teach – like that life was battle, and that in this battle, you couldn't trust anyone, and that friendship was a weakness. And if Seto didn't believe that losing was death before that fateful chess game, the game itself and it's consequences would have convinced him.

The sincerity and passion of Seto Kaiba's desire to be rid of what he calls the anger, bitterness and hatred branded into his heart by Gozaburo is very moving. But Kaiba is a lot more ambivalent about his adoptive father than those words, heartfelt as they are, would indicate. When we see Seto after his and Mokuba's arrival at the orphanage, he says that he's going to prove he's more than just the stray dogs from the gutter everyone thinks they are. In other words, he wants to do more than find a haven for himself and Mokuba, he's desperate to prove his worth. In that way, his choice of Gozaburo makes a lot of sense – it gets them not merely a home, but a mansion.

It also gets him a mentor as well as an enemy. For example, in Noa's world, Seto taunts Noa by saying that as someone who, like Gozaburo, had to not just work, but fight for everything he had, he was closer to Gozaburo in outlook and spirit than Noa, who had had so many things in his childhood handed. He is claiming here, not just the right to Gozaburo's corporation, but what he sees as Gozaburo's virtues as well.

In many ways it is the fact that these two roles – mentor and enemy – are rolled into one abusive person that causes as much damage to Seto as it does. Because Seto, as much as he hates Gozaburo, can never dismiss him, can never quite eject his training from his heart as much as he would sometimes like to, because they share too many values. That's what makes the process of questioning and to a certain extent unlearning those values such a long struggle for Seto, because those values are not alien ones, but often hit uncomfortably close to home.

 **Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my LJ account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated. As per FFNet's policy I can no longer post responses at the end of each chapter.

 _Comments would be adored…_


	4. Spellcaster's Judgment

**STYLE NOTE:** There is a line separation between the narratives that comprise the chapter.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 4: SPELLCASTER'S JUDGMENT**

 _Brothers can be the two halves that form an unbreakable whole… like the mortal Castor and his immortal brother, Pollux. Rather than be separated by death, Pollux gave half his divinity to his brother, so each could share the other's fate, wherever it led._

 _Brothers can be the ultimate example of the sum being greater than the parts… like the six sons of Anansi the spider – each with a special skill, all needing to work in perfect harmony to rescue their father._

 _But a fictional brother can be, not just one's sibling, but one's shadow as well – our darker impulses (appropriately enough for a Yu-Gi-Oh! story) unexpectedly made flesh and blood. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde re-mixed as not just spiritual twins, but physical ones as well._

 _Where then, on the sliding scale that starts with Castor and Pollux – and ends with Cain and Abel – do we place the Kaiba brothers?_

 **MOKUBA'S NARRATIVE**

One thing Nisama had taught me was never to try to evade the consequences of your actions; never pretend you didn't know. So I didn't lie to myself. I knew exactly what was going to happen from the moment I knocked on the door of Yugi's grandfather's game shop.

"It's my brother," I said when Yugi opened the door. "He's in trouble."

"Did you say your brother's _in_ trouble? Your brother _is_ trouble," Jounouchi grumbled through the opened doorway.

I should have known better than to come to anyone, even them, for help, but I hadn't known what else to do. I started to turn away, but Yugi stopped me. Anzu joined him, pushing Jounouchi out of the way.

"What's wrong? Can you tell me?" she asked.

It was what she'd said at Death-T and Duelists' Kingdom – close enough anyway.

They led me to the apartment upstairs. I told them everything. How my brother had created this virtual world. How one day, he'd been different, like how he was when they'd all first met us. I'd told them about the booby-traps and snares on our server, about the weapons files. Finally I repeated his last words to me when I'd run to find Yugi… how he'd taunted me that even Yugi couldn't pull off a second miracle.

"Nisama threw me out the door. I came here. I didn't know what else to do." I said.

There was a silence until Jounouchi broke it.

"He's supposed to be a fucking genius. How come he can't figure out that virtual worlds are seriously bad news?" Jounouchi blurted out.

I swear, sometimes it seemed like with Yugi's friends the only thing that never changed was that no matter what he did or why, my brother was always wrong.

"He was trying to do what the other Yugi told him," I said. "That's why he designed this game, to try and get a handle on stuff. He thought if he confronted it head on he could get past it – you know like you do in a video game."

I turned away from the loser dog. I wasn't surprised to see that Yugi looked a little taller than when I'd entered the room. He was sitting straighter, a single golden stalk of hair was standing up, and his eyes were crimson, not purple.

"So that was why he built it… I'd wondered," the other Yugi said. His voice was deeper than Yugi's.

"You know about his new project?" I asked. I couldn't believe it.

"I played it with him. It was amazing. But he didn't say what he'd been searching for when he designed it."

"Nisama took you into his new game?" I asked, choking on the words. It hurt in a way that seeing Nisama change hadn't. Even at Death-T we'd been a team, kind of. He might have tried to kill me there, but at least he hadn't built it with someone else and left me out in the cold. I bit my lip and looked down, blinking hard. I wasn't going to start bawling like a little kid in front of everybody.

"He wanted to make sure it was safe before he let you play it," the other Yugi said quietly. If the real Yugi had been the one talking I would of figured he was just trying to make me feel better. But this was the other one – and being nice wasn't his usual style.

"Trust me," he continued. "He was obsessed with your safety. I don't believe that's changed, whatever has happened. He sent you here."

"Kaiba asked you to test his new VR game? Why'd you keep it a secret?" Jounouchi asked him.

The other Yugi hesitated. He looked uncomfortable. I expected him to disappear; I waited for his eyes to widen and turn purple again, but they didn't.

"That game… it was private… personal," he said finally.

"Private?" Jounouchi squeaked. His eyes were even wider than the regular Yugi's. "You mean Kaiba invented some kind of kinky sex game and you didn't tell us about it?"

"What?" I shouted. I knew Jounouchi was dumb, but where had he gotten that idea from?

"Of course not!" the other Yugi yelled.

"Why? That'd be the first thing I'd do," Jounouchi said defensively. "That just proves Kaiba's crazy. I'd have a planet with all these hot girls and every time you won a match…"

"Jounouchi! Focus!" Anzu yelled, grabbing his duel disk off the table and hitting him over the head with it.

"Loser dog," I muttered, just loud enough to be sure Jounouchi heard me.

He glared at me, then stopped when he realized everyone else was glaring at him.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

"Go on, Mokuba," Honda said, moving to sit next to me on the couch. Maybe it was because he was tall like my brother, and he usually kept quiet instead of putting Nisama down, but I'd always kind of liked Honda.

"There isn't anything left to tell," I mumbled. "I came here. It was the only place I could think of."

The other Yugi nodded. "You did the right thing," he said. He stood up and walked to the door.

"Hey, where are you going?" I asked.

'You know where," he answered.

"We're going with you!" Jounouchi said. "No way we're letting you walk into this alone."

"I won't be alone," he said at the door. "I have faith in Kaiba. He sent for me. I'm going to justify that trust."

I followed the other Yugi to my house. The lights were on. My security card still worked and let us in the gates. My brother opened the door. His eyes went wide, the whites almost swallowing up his irises; his pupils were pinpoints. There were deep smudges under them. He was swaying slightly on his feet. I'd seen him look like that before, back when our adoptive father had given him an assignment and wouldn't let him sleep until he'd finished it. Nisama opened his mouth, shut it, then opened it again.

"You forgot the part about not coming back," he said, his words as clipped as if he'd cut each one off with scissors. His face was more like parchment than skin. Even with all that, it took me a moment to realize: he was terrified.

He looked past me to the slightly taller figure at my back and his breathing smoothed out. "At least you brought company."

"I received your message," The other Yugi said. "So I assume you know why I'm here."

"I can guess. You want a duel," Nisama answered.

"A penalty game."

"I accept," my brother said quickly. "I wouldn't have it any other way." He laughed as triumphantly as if he'd already won. He looked at me. "Mokuba, I mean it. Don't follow me. One way or another, this is the end game." For an instant his eyes softened; they lost their hostile glare. He hugged me. "Go back to wherever you dragged up this sorry excuse of a duelist," he said with a slight smile.

" _I'm_ not the one who's about to lose a penalty game," the other Yugi said.

My brother laughed again. I was surprised how playful it sounded. "Neither am I."

The other Yugi grinned. It wasn't his usual gloating smirk. He was smiling like he really meant it, as if he really liked my brother.

"I know," he told Nisama as they started walking towards the mansion's dueling arena.

I obeyed my brother, sort of. I didn't go back to Yugi's, but I didn't follow them into the arena, either. I waited in the hall outside, running through my next moves in my head. Like my brother always said, never pretend you don't know the consequences of your actions. This was a penalty game. I'd need to get our doctor on standby. I knew he wouldn't ask any questions. He never had with Gozaburo; he never had after Death-T. I pushed aside the thought that just once, it would have been nice for somebody to finally ask what the hell was going on.

I stared at the closed dueling arena door. It wasn't fair of me to blame the other Yugi, not when I was the one who'd dragged him into this mess to begin with.

I knew that.

But I did.

* * *

 **KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

I'd thought my plan was perfect until I saw Mokuba walk in the door. He never listened, he never stayed away. The anger in my voice was real enough to make him flinch. I would have begged him to leave, but I couldn't afford any weakness, not when sounds were already starting to blur into each other, not when I had a penalty game to lose and win.

I led the way to the dueling arena and locked the door behind me. A holographic chess board, the pieces already standing in their appointed places, filled the room. The other Yugi walked to the challenger's side as if he'd been playing chess all his life. I felt some of the tension drain out of me. It made it harder to stand.

Gozaburo looked at the board and grinned. "Your technical skills have improved."

Even now, it was hard to hold back a sense of pride at his praise. I hated him. His opinion shouldn't matter.

"Soon they'll be at my disposal. It's fitting this ends with a chess game," he added.

I couldn't have agreed more. And as with chess, strategy is everything. Gozaburo was trying to take control again. I drew in a deep breath as he turned and said to the other Yugi, speaking for the first time with my voice, "This is a family party."

"Not quite. It's a penalty game," the other Yugi said. The puzzle around his neck was shinning, just as it had when we'd both been in my virtual world. I had a faint glimpse of a third eye glowing for an instant on his forehead. Gozaburo was as quick as ever to pick up the scent of power, the power that could make the consequences of this game real.

My virtual world must have changed even more than I'd thought though, because Gozaburo didn't seem surprised. He muttered to me, "So that blow-hard was right. It does come down to a challenge. But you waited too long, boy. You don't have the strength to withstand me."

"You're _not_ Seto Kaiba," the other Yugi said. It wasn't a question. I felt strange; he'd known the man standing before him wasn't me so quickly. It was what I'd counted on; it was still unsettling that he knew me that well.

"No," Gozaburo answered.

"When you lose, you will leave the body and soul you sought to steal."

I let Gozaburo stretch my lips into a grin. "When I beat you, I'm taking over lock, stock, and barrel – and you're going home with your tail between your legs like the whipped puppy you are."

"I'll have to win then – for both Seto Kaiba and myself. It's time to begin. Chose your place on the board."

Gozaburo grunted, speaking to me again, "As if there was any doubt that the king's place belongs to me. You stole it. Now, it's time to take it back, and you're too weak to do anything but watch."

As with chess, strategy is everything. This was a penalty game. Gozaburo didn't just choose the white king, he became it, bonded with it, their fates becoming one. It was necessary. It hurt anyway, and I couldn't even hide it. It was like watching him burn our toys in the fireplace on our first night at the mansion, it was like not fighting back when he hit me, like letting him dictate when I could sleep and eat all over again. It was like letting him win.

And the king was Mokuba's place.

"So, this isn't just bruised pride," Gozaburo said. "You put up a good front, boy – but despite everything, you're still pathetic enough to care, to need people. Tell me, when I win, should I snuff out what's left of your consciousness, or leave just enough of you left so you'll know how powerless you are?"

I couldn't help myself. Even knowing everything on the line, I couldn't keep still. "You've never beaten me at anything yet, you old fool," I snarled. "I took you down when I was ten, and I'm doing it again now. If I have to fight you throughout eternity, that's how long I'll be grinding you into the dirt."

I'd angered him. He dismissed me from his thoughts though, as if I was already as dead and helpless as he'd claimed. I could barely contain my rage at being ignored as he made his opening moves. From his position as the king, he'd figured out how to control the other pieces, direct their movements.

He stared at his king, slightly puzzled. "You wasted all your energy making the rest of them beautiful. Then you take the king, and look at him … his mechanical body isn't powerful, it's an ugly collection of nuts and bolts and gold plating. And he's blind; his crown is sitting on his headless shoulders. Why?"

"Sometimes ugliness serves a purpose."

Gozaburo went back to ignoring me. I waited as he opened the board. I hadn't been sure the other Yugi had ever played chess before. I still wasn't, but I was relieved to see that each of his moves was stronger than the last.

This was chess; strategy was everything. Gozaburo had set his pieces in place, confident it would be a short game, sure of his hold on all the pieces on his side of the board. But the king had never been my piece. My place had always been with the queen, protecting Mokuba. I separated myself from Gozaburo just enough to merge with her; to wrest control of her movements away from him, then I moved her right where she would disrupt his entire strategy; even better, I'd stolen his turn.

"You wanted to be king, so bad?" I taunted. "Now live with your choice. He's not just any chess king – he's the _Puppet_ King. You're right. He's ugly. He's blind – can't even see what's staring him in the face. And he's the perfect cage to quarantine you before you infect the rest of my life."

I held my breath. I'd placed the queen to destroy Gozaburo's strategy. But it left her wide open, and now it was the other Yugi's turn.

"Say good-bye, boy," Gozaburo gloated.

The other Yugi's knight jumped right over my queen to take a pawn.

"That kid knows even less about the game than I thought, if he passed up the chance to get rid of the queen," Gozaburo said.

But the other Yugi nodded across the board and raised two fingers to his forehead in salute.

Somehow he knew. My plan was coming together. I was coming undone. Having him recognize me like that – twice now – was grating, as if he'd run sandpaper over my skin, leaving me slightly raw.

I held on to my composure long enough to move my queen again, forestalling Gozaburo. I'd made sure to leave his queen's side bishop vulnerable. The other Yugi was quick to take advantage. But each turn the other Yugi and I played in tandem left me feeling slightly weaker, slightly more trapped, even as I came closer to getting rid of Gozaburo with each successive move.

"Look at you… relying on him to save you. You can't even win on your own anymore. Is that how you plan on protecting your brother? By begging for help like a little girl?" Gozaburo sneered.

"Fucking die already!" I yelled.

But chess is a game of strategy. In the instant I took to scream back at him, Gozaburo shut me out of the game and moved his remaining bishop to take one of the other Yugi's knights.

How could I have made such a stupid mistake? He'd used my rage to yank me to heel as if his dog collar was still around my neck. As if I was ten. And I'd stood there and let him do it.

"Seto Kaiba!" the other Yugi yelled.

I looked at the board. While I'd been fuming, I'd missed another two chances at taking back control.

"Sorry, he's busy," Gozaburo smirked.

"Focus, Kaiba! You're my comrade. You can do this. We can finish this together."

He was right. The game wasn't over, not while my queen was still standing. I managed to move her in position to protect the other Yugi's queen.

"Following his orders… protecting his queen with your own… you really are his bitch."

That cost me another round. I didn't have the energy left to pretend his cuts weren't drawing blood. I looked at the board. Between the other Yugi and myself, we'd destroyed most of Gozaburo's pieces. No one, not even a Grand Master, can lose so much and survive. I thought of myself in the months and years before Death-T, tearing pieces of my soul until there was nothing left to hang on to. Was this different or more of the same?

The other Yugi had told me at Alcatraz that I had to defeat my hatred. Now, as always with Gozaburo, it fueled my determination not to yield; it was keeping me alive. It would have to see me through this game and its aftermath.

* * *

 **YAMI'S NARRATIVE**

Mokuba let me help him carry Kaiba's unconscious body to his bedroom. For such a tall man, Kaiba was surprisingly light. Mokuba had his shoulders, I had his legs; each hand was cradling a thin ankle. We maneuvered him onto the bed. Mokuba went to take off his boots. He wouldn't look at or talk to me. It wasn't unexpected. It shouldn't have stung.

But it did.

I went to the head of the bed. When Yugi had visited Kaiba in the weeks after Death-T, even though I'd hated the other duelist, even though I'd reminded myself with each tense moment that Kaiba had deserved to be exactly where he was… even with all that, the empty shell of his body had been painful to watch, a mockery of the person who'd disappeared inside.

Now, despite Kaiba's stillness, he didn't look like he'd just lost a penalty game, like he was once again paying the price for having the darkness forcibly expelled from his soul.

He looked like an exhausted child who'd finally gone to sleep.

I sighed. Were we destined – even when we were fighting together as we had tonight – to always be at odds with each other? Was I destined, even when I was trying to help, to hurt him regardless? I brushed the hair off his forehead. His face was paler than usual, except for the dark shadows, almost like bruises, under his eyes.

"Stop that! Don't touch him!" Mokuba said sharply.

"You knew what I was going to do," I reminded him. "It's why you came to me. You knew there was a darkness feeding on him, and that it needed to be exorcised." Despite the sternness of my words, I tried to keep my – or rather, Yugi's – voice even.

Mokuba looked down… looked away… looked anywhere but at me as he nodded.

I was about to add, "Then don't complain now," but Yugi's voice in my head stopped me. I hadn't felt his presence since the start of the duel. I'd been grateful. Breaking Kaiba, winning back his soul, had been such an intimate affair. I'd wanted to do it privately. Now Yugi was with me, and I realized anew that I needed him, not for penalty games, but for their aftermath.

" _Don't press him,"_ Yugi said through our mind link. _"It was hard enough for Mokuba to come to us, knowing what would happen."_

I sighed inwardly, so only Yugi could hear me.

" _And you think this was easy for me?"_ I knew what Yugi would say, but I needed to hear it anyway.

" _No, I know it wasn't."_

" _Sometimes, I hear Pegasus' voice telling me that the Millennium Items and everything that comes from them is evil. Hurting people seems so innately tied to who I am."_

" _There's more to you than darkness. You're a good friend. You'd do anything to help. How can that be wrong?"_ Yugi insisted.

"Will he be okay?" Mokuba whispered.

I nodded. "If there's one thing I will always trust to, it's your brother's ability to rebuild, to move forward."

"Move forward?" Mokuba said, a hint of bitterness in the almost-question.

"This was different than the last time. This darkness wasn't a part of him; it was alien. Kaiba was there, fighting beside me. It's why I won so easily."

"Alien? Like Nisama's possessed or something? And you think that's good news?" Mokuba yelled.

"Isn't it better that this was something outside of himself… something he was fighting every step of the way?" I asked, holding the younger boy's gaze.

"Yeah," Mokuba said, dropping his eyes. "I guess it is."

"Your brother was the one to set this up. No one who's ever dueled him could doubt that. He'd decided this was the quickest way to banish whatever was in there with him. Time was important to him for some reason. His plan worked. It's gone now," I said reassuringly.

"What was it?"

"I'm not sure," I said thoughtfully. "We'll have to wait for your brother to wake up to find out."

Mokuba squared his shoulders. "What happened?" he asked.

"We played a game of chess – after a fashion. Kaiba had a holographic board set up. He was waiting for me."

"You beat my brother at _chess?_ " he asked.

I hid a smile. "It _is_ a game," I pointed out. "And I didn't beat your brother, but the thing that was infecting him. Kaiba was on my side in this endeavor."

"You mean my brother lost a game _on purpose_?" Mokuba had taken the news his brother had been possessed in stride. Now he was open-mouthed with shock.

I sighed, trying to think of a way to explain. "Not quite. Kaiba couldn't face his enemy directly: this darkness was inside his soul, they had to occupy the same side. And at first I was afraid for your brother, ceding such a powerful position as the king uncontested. I underestimated him. I should have known. The other chess pieces were genuine. They resembled duel monsters but never quite duplicated them." I thought for a moment of the curve of the Witch of the Black Forest's cheek, still visible under the bishop's cowl, of the way the flash of the knight's blade reminded me of the Flame Swordsman.

"But…" Mokuba said.

"But I should have been quicker to grasp Kaiba's intentions when I saw the black and white kings were duel monsters in truth. Kaiba had placed the _Puppet_ King at either end of the board." I described the rest of the chess match. I shook my head. "It worked, but it was risky. If the white king had managed to win, he would have taken control of the board – and of your brother."

Mokuba swallowed hard. "But he's okay, right?"

"I'm sure of it. I told your brother at Alcatraz that he couldn't win while still fighting the demons he carries within his heart."

"I remember," Mokuba said.

"The same was true for his demons. The darkness could usurp the king's place… but it couldn't hold it. He'll wake up unharmed. This was his fight and this loss was his victory – a testament to his determination and skill."

But I'd sensed the turmoil within Kaiba all throughout the match. And I knew Kaiba better than to hope that relief would be the only emotion in his heart when he finally woke up.

* * *

 _  
**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter and for much support.**   
_

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** It struck me as I was writing the opening, that for a brother pair where one brother tried to kill the other, it's amazing how much closer the Kaiba's are to Castor and Pollux.

In most stories, if the homicidal brother isn't going to be the villain, an attempt is made to explain away his actions, to show how he really hadn't tried to kill his brother after all, how it was all part of some huge deception. I really respect that that doesn't happen in Yu-Gi-Oh! Kazuki Takahashi lets the contradiction stand. He doesn't attempt to have Kaiba's reaction be anything other than what they are. And by doing that, as we get to know Kaiba, the fact that he was willing to let Mokuba die at Death-T says more about just how badly damaged he was and his resulting spiritual collapse than anything else.

Another contradiction I've always loved appears quite early – and for once is stressed best in the dub version. It was the first Yu-Gi-Oh! episode I saw. Kaiba is flying to Duelists' Kingdom and he thinks how Yugi was probably right and that he needs to change – but then he thinks that with Mokuba's safety on the line, he can't afford to try to do things differently, so whatever the cost he has to stick with his old methods and attitudes. I just thought that was so human, it instantly made me want to know who this guy was.

 **Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my LJ account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated. As per FFNet's policy I can no longer post responses at the end of each chapter.

 _Comments would be adored…_


	5. Phantom Darkness

**CHAPTER 5: PHANTOM DARKNESS**

 _If heroes wear 1,000 faces, allies come in almost as many guises… from videogames' cheerfully vacant non-player characters to the easy going, buddy-buddy, 'til death do us part camaraderie of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. But for all the complexity that attends the road to fellowship, the ally's role is mercifully clear – to be the hero's complement, to help him on his journey. Where would Frodo be without his Sam? For that matter, where would the Emperor Palpatine be without a Darth Vader to call his own?_

 **KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

I heard a voice calling my name. Both the words and the voice were familiar.

"Kaiba, wake up!" it commanded. "I know you have the strength to regain your soul. I know you have the strength to return. I have faith in you."

His voice was too insistent to be a dream. My eyelids flickered – not that I was going to open them on _his_ orders. Then another voice broke in.

"Please, Nisama… wake up."

I opened my eyes to see my brother's worried face looming over me. I didn't look past Mokuba to where I knew I'd find a crimson eyed spirit sitting by the door.

I was lying down in my bed this time. There was an IV in my arm. I'd been out of it long enough to require intravenous feeding.

My head was clear. Gozaburo was gone, or as gone as he ever was. I had to wonder though: if someone else had been in that virtual world – Yugi, for example – would Gozaburo have gotten into his mind as easily? Or did Gozaburo really did own me as he'd claimed? Even worse, was I truly his double? My stomach heaved before I could control it. I swallowed hard.

"It's okay, Mokuba," I said.

Mokuba threw himself across my chest, sobbing; he buried his face against my neck. I brushed stray strands of black hair out of my mouth, then patted his head with my free hand. I was glad he didn't seem to want to talk. There was nothing to say.

Once again I'd needed to have the darkness expelled from my soul, as if this was its natural home. I could tell myself that this time was different. But, as always, my thoughts lead straight to Death-T, following a path that had been etched in my memory with acid. I remembered the feeling of darkness growing, and with it, paranoia… the need to defeat my enemies… my determination to rid myself of the threat they represented, permanently; to finally defeat them in a game where the penalty for loss was death. Not that false illusion of death I'd endured, but the real thing. I swallowed again, remembering how even as Mokuba was helping me build my monument to the darkness Gozaburo had branded into my heart, I'd catch myself wondering if his familiar, increasingly worried face masked a resolve to challenge me now that I'd proven myself weak enough to lose.

This time was different, but how could I believe that _I_ was different when I hadn't won… not on my own. I'd needed to prove – to Gozaburo, to myself – that I wasn't still the person who'd tried to kill his brother, that I wasn't Gozaburo's pawn, that he was never going to control my actions. But when all was said and done, Gozaburo and I had been on the same side of the board. I wasn't the one facing him cleanly, I wasn't the one freeing myself unaided; it wasn't my voice that finally announced, "Checkmate!"

My eyes drifted shut again. I barely remembered that last evening, waiting for my rival to arrive to help me defeat my enemy… not knowing if I was awake or dreaming… not knowing which of the voices I was hearing was my own. Everything Gozaburo had said was what I'd believed for so long; I was having a hard time remembering which bastard was the one I had to defeat.

The relief I'd felt when the other Yugi had arrived shamed me. The fact that he'd come through, just as I'd known he would, didn't take the sting out of the fact I'd no business asking in the first place. I'd achieved my goal, but I'd let Gozaburo see my growing weakness. I'd let the other Yugi help. It almost made me wish I'd stuck to my back-up plan instead.

I reached for the locket still encircling my neck, clutched it in my hand. I might have to live with the shame of begging for help, but I'd hung on. Mokuba was okay. That was what mattered, not this vague guilty feeling.

I forced my eyes open again. There was something I had to tell Mokuba…

"The king… I'm sorry… that's your place. You're the king… you always have been," I said.

Mokuba looked puzzled, then something else, something I couldn't identify, entered his face. He was staring so intently, I wondered if he was mad at me. The thought of Gozaburo occupying the space that had always been reserved for Mokuba, the thought that he'd tainted even that… I swallowed hard again.

"I didn't have a choice… not if I wanted to defeat him," I explained.

Mokuba leaned forward. He still looked intense, but he'd washed the anger (if that's what it'd been) off his face. "It's okay, Nisama. Really. Just get well. I'm sorry too. You know… about all of this…" He gestured to the bed. "It was the only way."

I nodded and shut my eyes. I knew that. Hell, I'd set it all in motion.

Besides, it wasn't like it hadn't happened before.

* * *

 **GOZABURO'S NARRATIVE**

Abruptly, I was back in the virtual world my adoptive son had created. I thought of Zorc saying that the body had to be won, not stolen. When Seto's unexpected ally had challenged me to a chess match of sorts, I'd jumped at the chance. Seto was obviously too weak to take me on himself; he'd been swaying on his feet all evening. The match could only end one way, with me taking over his body for good. And as a final lesson, I was going to use the person he'd been pathetic enough to call to for help to be the means of delivering the coup d'grace.

I'd had all the advantages as usual. But I'd underestimated Seto. For days, I'd sensed him stalling for time, putting a defensive perimeter around everything important to him, everything I planned to destroy: his new Kaiba Corporation and his brother. I thought he'd ceded me the initiative and that it was only a matter of time before he'd surrender his soul, just as he'd had before.

But I'd been impatient. The sight of him reminded me of those first months after his arrival at the mansion. He'd look up at me, as I stood over his desk berating him for sleeping or for taking too long to complete an assignment, waiting to see how I'd punish him next. His face was always composed, but he couldn't quite control the fear shining in the corners of his eyes… eyes exquisitely bright with the tears he refused to let fall. I missed those days. I'd wanted them back. I was so close to hearing him beg for the first time.

I felt cheated. It wasn't just being denied his tears, it wasn't even losing another match to the little snake. Seto had used a strategy that was so alien. He'd fought not just me, but his own desire to win, no matter the situation, no matter the cost. He'd surprised me. He'd gone to someone for _help_ … and not just anyone; he'd gone to a punk he considered his rival. Seto had trusted him.

But, for all his boasts of deleting my influence and despite the puzzling strategy he'd used in this latest round, I knew him. Hell, I'd molded him in my image, and no matter what he tried to change he was never going to be able to erase that. And Seto had always been reckless. I'd never tried to train him out of it. His rashness made him more predictable. It was a convenient leash to yank him to heel.

It was how I knew I'd get a second chance, how I knew he'd be coming back into this virtual prison. He'd want revenge. And he wouldn't care what risks he had to run to get it.

I heard footsteps behind me. I didn't bother turning around. I wasn't surprised that the super-sized freak was here to gloat. But the fact he'd showed up meant he thought he needed me.

"Maybe we do have something to offer each other, after all," he said.

"My adopted son will be back here. I'll get my chance at a rematch. Count on it."

"I believe the pharaoh will accompany him. He will have realized by now that he has unfinished business here too. You've done well."

I didn't bother hiding my anger. He had some nerve talking to me like I was his flunky. I might have lost to Seto, but that didn't mean I was going to roll over and bare my throat to Zorc.

"You were right," he added, as if I was a favorite dog and he was throwing me a bone. "There's no need for us to challenge them directly. The High Priest formed this game to seek out his own weaknesses and attack them mercilessly. He originally designed this game to kill."

"My adoptive son is a fool," I said. "This game was built on anger, bitterness and revenge. Instead of using those things, he's trying to renounce them."

"Since we hope to profit from his belated and misguided hopes, it would be churlish of us to complain of them. Once we make a few adjustments to its coding, when he and the pharaoh return, this will become their own personal penalty game; its consequences will be binding. We need only to wait for the game to fulfill its deadly purpose, and all that will remain are two avenues to the world outside, waiting for us to use them."

"Us?"

"We need each other for the moment. We can argue about the division of the spoils later."

"Don't pretend you know me," I said.

"I don't need to pretend. We're kindred spirits."

With that, Zorc vanished. A moment later, my son took his place. The contrast between him and Zorc was ludicrous – and humiliating. Noa's image kept flickering; he was too weak to maintain it. He was still in the outfit he'd worn to his funeral. I'd never updated his profile; now it irked me. What was more worthless than an heir who'd never grow up to be a man? I turned away.

My son was the one great disappointment of my life, because he was the only one I'd ever had expectations of. He was supposed to have been my future. He was supposed to have been _mine_. He'd died instead. He'd left me.

Seto could never disappoint me. I'd known from the start, even before he did, that Seto was my enemy. Every time I'd looked at him, smirking as though he knew something I didn't, it had reminded me – I'd had a son once that was my own flesh and blood and not a stray dog I'd picked out of the street. But I'd lost my son. I'd _lost_.

Thanks to Noa's carelessness, I'd needed an heir. Seto had wanted desperately to be a Kaiba; he'd fought and schemed for the privilege that Noa had thrown away. I'd enjoyed teaching Seto that our desires are never granted without a price.

Noa had seemed like the perfect son. But a perfect son wouldn't have deserted me. Then he'd defied me in the virtual world I'd made for him, as if he'd never been mine; as if he had any more right to disobey me than my own arm or leg.

"Why'd you bother following me into this world?" I asked, without turning around, without acknowledging his presence, except indirectly.

"Because you're my father. I wanted to be with you," Noa replied.

"You're too weak to be of use to me."

"Is that all I ever was, father? Something to use?"

"Not when you were alive. You were my heir. My pride. My hope for the future. You took that from me when you died."

"I'm sorry, father." There was a pause. "Can't this just end? Can't we face it together?"

"Weakling. My blood must have been thin on the night you were conceived. I'm through relying on other people to keep my legacy alive. I want immortality. I'm going to seize it for myself."

"Living past death is not always a blessing, father. When I died, I had parents who loved me. I had everything."

"Then why don't you stop whining and just disappear, already?"

"Because I'm your son. I want all the things I've lost back – and giving up doesn't come naturally to me, either."

* * *

 **YAMI'S NARRATIVE**

It was just past dawn. The room was getting lighter. I was sitting next to Kaiba's bed. Mokuba had finally gone to sleep on the bed he'd moved into his brother's room the day before.

"Is Mokuba okay?" Seto whispered.

As soft as his voice was, it startled me. I'd thought he was still asleep.

"He just dozed off a few minutes ago. Let me get him," I said.

"No. Let him sleep. I don't want to upset him more than I already have. There's nothing to say."

That was so illogical, even for Kaiba, I held my tongue.

"Why are you here? Come to check on your handiwork?" Kaiba said, his voice tired and spoiling for a fight at the same time.

"Kaiba… I…"

"Finish your sentence. Or can't you?"

"Kaiba!"

"Don't. I can read you like a book. I know what you're trying to spit out. What were you going to apologize for anyway? For stopping me before I killed someone?"

"For hurting you," I said gently.

"I can take it."

"I know. That doesn't change how I feel, how I've grieved each time."

There was an uncomfortable pause. I stared at Kaiba. He accepted my silent regard.

"Is what Mokuba said true?" I asked.

Kaiba stared at me defiantly. "What did he say? That he was afraid I was going to turn KC back into a weapons factory? That I might have ended up killing him and anyone who got in my way if things had gone on long enough? Yeah. It's all true."

"Stop lying! Not to me. Not after a penalty game. Do you think me a blind fool? You were on my side against whatever you were fighting. It's why it was over so quickly."

"Shit. Is that why you're still here? Because you think I'm so weak I need you to fight my battles? To rescue me like I'm some little girl whining for help? Like I'm…" He shook his head in agitation. The movement swept his bangs off his face. They flopped right back to hide his eyes, but not before I'd seen the look of shame they carried.

"Kaiba, the mark of a true duelist isn't in the winning, but in the struggle. When have you ever offered less than your best? I respect your determination. I always have."

"I'm the one that let him in. Again and again. Like he lives here. Like he owns me," Kaiba said bitterly.

"Stop it! No one owns you and you know it."

"Always so gracious in victory, aren't you," Kaiba said with a sneer, leaning forward on the bed.

Kaiba obviously expected me to taunt him for needing my help – and when I refused to do so, he simply filled the silence with all the hateful things he expected me to say – and then attributed them to me. I wondered just who he was hearing denigrate him with my voice. But I'd been prepared for his anger; I knew him too well to have expected any other reaction. In the end, it mattered less than his trust.

"We won, Kaiba," I reminded him.

"No. _You_ won," he said uncompromisingly.

"You have the nerve to use me as a weapon in your hand and then prate to me of weakness?" I said.

It was a relief to see Kaiba settle back against the pillows.

"I might have fought back, hell, it's what I do… I might have even planned it – but I'm also the one with an IV stuck in his arm," he said.

I looked at Kaiba's paler than usual skin, at the black smudges under his eyes. I knew better than to offer sympathy.

"You were only out of it for about a day. Considering how skinny you are, Mokuba probably saw a chance to get some nutrients into you and took it."

Kaiba's bark of laughter was like water falling in the desert, sparse but welcome.

"Mokuba said that you were trying to rid yourself of your anger and hatred," I said.

"I didn't need you to tell me my future was being smothered by my own anger and hate. I thought it'd be easy to fight my demons if I could see them. Then I got distracted by the fight itself. Some duelist – isn't that what you threw in my face when I lost at Alcatraz?" he said, starting to twist on the bed again.

"You are." I stared at Kaiba, wishing the taller duelist would tilt his head a little so I could see into his eyes again, but the heavy fall of his bangs stayed in place, shielding them. "I spoke out of anger at Alcatraz and you know it; out of frustration at seeing you so determinedly marching down the wrong path. I hated seeing you so trapped."

Kaiba's lips twitched. "For a guy who lives in a puzzle, you're a fine one to talk."

"What happened, Kaiba?" I asked softly.

"I'm not sure. But I intend to find out before I get any older."

I looked at the figure on the bed. The morning light filtering in through the window had caught the thin planes of Kaiba's face, had shaded his leanness into fragility.

"Try to rest, first," I said; the words fell awkwardly from my lips. Kaiba ignored me.

"You knew it wasn't me," he accused, as if I'd insulted him by recognizing him so easily.

"Right from our first duel, you knew I wasn't Yugi. You've always known," I pointed out.

"Do you even have a name?" he asked irritably.

"Everyone has a name. I don't remember what mine is. Why does that matter? You've never had a problem calling me 'Yugi,' before."

"Because you're not. I want a name to call you," he said stubbornly.

I smiled. "Yami no Yugi."

"Yami. Darkness… you could have picked worse. Why are you here, Yami?" he asked again.

"Do you mind if I stay a while?"

"Don't you have a puzzle to get back to?"

"Not today."

He didn't answer. He closed his eyes instead. It was strange, sitting in Kaiba's bedroom, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest as he slept.

It was peaceful.

I thought back to the chess match. Kaiba hadn't named his enemy directly, but neither Mokuba nor I had any doubt who the demon trying to take him over had been. I'd thought Kaiba had escaped Gozaburo, had literally flown out of his grasp in the explosion that had destroyed Noa's virtual world. Kaiba's willingness to leave that battle, his decision to live, should have been victory enough. It seems the fates disagreed.

I was Kaiba's rival. Since Death-T, I'd never been his opponent. Despite everything, part of me was pleased Kaiba knew this as well. He'd sent for me. He'd let me help him. He'd assumed I'd understand his message, no matter how indirectly delivered. As angry as Kaiba was about what he obviously viewed as a moment of weakness in letting me in at all, he couldn't undo it; it had happened.

I thought of the moment before I'd dueled Malik at Alcatraz, of Kaiba throwing me his spell card and saying that if friendship resided in the cards his had possibilities. Sitting beside Kaiba's bed, even in my borrowed body, anything seemed possible.

I was relieved to see how easily he was sleeping. The morning light was stronger now. I smiled as I watched it dance across the cinnamon surface of Kaiba's hair. It nestled against his body, dipping in and out of the line of his back, the curve of his shoulder. Kaiba turned slightly and the light caught his face, tried to penetrate his closed eyes. His lips twitched in a momentary frown before relaxing. I'd never seen Kaiba surrender so completely to anything before – even sleep. I got up and adjusted the blinds, shielding him even from the sun.

As I returned to my post, Mokuba stirred, then shook himself awake and came to his brother's side.

"Your brother woke up briefly. He seemed fine, if tired," I told him.

"Nisama woke up and you didn't tell me? What's wrong with you?" Mokuba said angrily.

"He wanted you to sleep. I was trying to argue with him as little as possible."

Mokuba nodded, then frowned. "I keep telling myself not to blame you, and then I keep doing it anyway. I know I shouldn't. It's just… well, look at him!" Mokuba said, pointing to his brother. "It's not fair! It never is and I'm sick of it."

He pulled a chair up to the bed and sat down. "You sure he's okay?" he asked, staring at his brother.

I nodded.

"Nisama used to say that all the time, you know," he said.

"What?" I asked. Kaiba had spent most of our brief conversation reacting to his own thoughts. I wondered if it was a family tradition.

"That I was his king. He'd say it at the orphanage every time he'd beat me. He'd say I hadn't really lost because I was his king the whole time; he was winning for me…" Mokuba's voice trailed off. He shook his head. "Nisama must have still been out of it. He couldn't of thought there was any chance I'd be mad."

"It's not that simple," I said. "He did what he had to, to protect you. But he hurt you too, and he knows it. That's not an easy thing to live with."

Mokuba turned from the bed to look at me. "For you either?" he asked quietly.

I nodded. We sat for a few minutes in silence.

"What was it like? His virtual world, I mean," Mokuba asked abruptly. When I didn't answer, he added, "I never got to play it."

"He wanted to make sure the safety system worked when there was more than one player, first," I said.

"I know that. But… I've been waiting my whole life for my brother to open up, even a little. This game is about his life… it's about our future – and he showed it to you, not me. And it's not like it's the first time either."

"What?" I said, confused again.

"At Alcatraz. All that stuff he told you about how he hated our past. I never knew he felt that bad."

"You're his younger brother, Mokuba. Throughout all the darkness that's surrounded him, protecting you is the one pure emotion in his life. He can't let that go."

"I don't get it," he said. "The way you talk, it's like you understand him, like you care what happens to him. Every time I talk to you, I believe you."

"I do care. You know that," I insisted.

"But… that first time you dueled… you drove him crazy for stealing a card. He woke up every night screaming. Even Gozaburo never managed that."

I'd seen potential in Kaiba, right from the beginning, but no one else could manage to anger me so deeply, so easily.

"He shouldn't have stolen it. He needed to learn," I said.

"Learn what? That people will line up waiting to crush him if he makes a mistake? He figured that out long before you came on the scene."

"That card was just as important to Yugi's grandfather," I said sternly.

"No it wasn't. It couldn't be," Mokuba said with absolute certainty. "Yugi's grandfather has friends and family. He has the time to hang around playing games. He laughs. My brother had a company that killed people, he had a responsibility to me, and he had the hope of those dragons, like they were going to make it all work out. I don't care how much Yugi's grandfather liked that card. It didn't mean more to him than it did to my brother."

"It still wasn't his."

"You've seen my brother with those dragons. How can you go on and on about the heart of the cards all the time and then turn around and say they're not his?"

"The cards we choose speak to us. That dragon was trying to tell Kaiba of loyalty and honor. It could never be his until Kaiba was ready to listen. Our duel monsters are more than a means to an end."

"My brother knows that!" Mokuba said defensively.

"He does now. It's why he's such a formidable duelist," I answered.

Mokuba nodded. He got up, walked to the window, then returned to his place beside his brother. "You know what sucks?" he said in a low voice. "I ran to you because I was afraid he was going back to the way he was. It's probably the one thing on Earth he's scared of, and I let him down. I should have trusted he knew what he was doing."

Mokuba was huddled into his chair. The five year age gap, not just between him and Kaiba, but between him and Yugi as well, had never seemed greater. I wished Yugi was awake. Mokuba was looking at me, waiting expectantly. Yugi would probably know what to say. I considered calling for his help, but a delayed answer might be worse than an awkward one. Besides, Mokuba had asked me, not Yugi, and like his brother, he knew the difference between us.

I found myself relying on Yugi anyway, repeating the things I'd learned from him, the things I'd tried to puzzle out on my own when I was alone in my soul room.

"I know. There've been times when Yugi was afraid of me and with good reason, times when I brushed him aside, when I forgot that he's far wiser than I. It's hard. Love is a perfect and pure emotion, but we're human. We make mistakes." I paused. I knew my words were true; accepting them was difficult. "You did what Kaiba wanted, what he needed you to do. You came to me. It had to end with a penalty game. Kaiba knew that. So did you."

"Yeah, but that doesn't make what I did right. After all he's done for me, when it counted, I doubted him. He promised me when I saw him at Duelists' Kingdom that he was never going back to the way things were. That I was his king and he was never forgetting again. I should have known better," Mokuba said. His chin quivered. He pressed his lips together.

"Kaiba deliberately kept you in the dark," I pointed out.

" _You_ believed in him in spite of what it looked like," he said.

"So did you in all the ways that counted. You believed that even if all your fears were coming true, you could still help. You believed that no matter how far he fell into darkness, he'd always come back to you. No matter what it felt like at the time, you were still working together. And you both won."

"Yeah," Mokuba said with satisfaction. "And I'm never doubting him again because my brother can do anything!"

Here was another reason why Yugi was more adept at offering comfort than I. As glad as I was to see Mokuba's smile, to hear the confidence return to his voice, I couldn't let his boast stand unchallenged.

"No, he can't," I said. "None of us can. Not alone. And you do him no favors by pretending otherwise."

* * *

 _  
**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter.**   
_

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Of all the Yu-Gi-Oh! characters, Noa is the one I have the most conflicted feelings about. I really hated him in the subtitled anime, mostly because he was so hateful himself to Seto. Noa was so smugly superior and he took such glee in making Seto suffer. Cruelty is probably the vice I have the least sympathy for, and Noa had that in abundance. It seemed to me that Noa was not only cruel but that he enjoyed it.

Then we got to the end of Noa's Arc, where he and Gozaburo are about to be destroyed and he's both restraining the monster Gozaburo has become, and hugging him. That's when I fully saw Noa as a lonely little kid who'd died, been shoved into a strange existence and then abandoned by the father he adored and who was his only contact with the outside world. I loved Yugi's observation that even though they didn't see it that way, both Noa and Seto had suffered from being Gozaburo's sons.

This all makes actually writing Noa into a challenge. The side of him that's superior and resentful is still there and needs to be part of the mix (although it's not the side I focused on in this chapter) but it has to be balanced with the more sympathetic parts. Also while I see him as the child he was when he died, at least emotionally… yet at the same time the years spent in electronic limbo need to be accounted for. In a way, it makes writing Noa and odd combination of the challenges of writing both Yami and Seto.

 **Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my LJ account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated. As per FFNet's policy I can no longer post responses at the end of each chapter.

 _Comments would be adored…_


	6. Dark Revelations

**AU NOTE:** In the manga/anime the Spirit of the Ring is either Zorc or possibly Zorc with a side helping of Thief King Bakura, while the Thief King is the one facing the pharaoh in the Memory World. In addition to finding this a bit confusing and cumbersome, and I thought Thief King Bakura was an interesting character with a compelling back story and I wanted to include it. So I was pretty happy when I realized that since this was an AU that begins right after Battle City/Alcatraz and before the Ancient Egypt/Memory World arc, I could simplify things by having the Spirit of the Ring simply be the spirit of Thief King Bakura.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 6: DARK REVELATIONS**

 _Since the Romans had gods for everything from sellers to sewer systems, it's not surprising they had several to preside over an object as critical as a doorway. It's strange that something as ordinary as a door can separate something as important as our public and private lives. But these mundane portals have another, more metaphysical role… to stand as signposts or warnings, to act as the dividing lines between what is and what was, between what we have and what we want._

 _Sometimes a threshold can be as tangible as the thicket of thorns surrounding Sleeping Beauty's bower, as well guarded as a head boss' fortress in a video game, as unexpected as walking into a closet and finding yourself in Narnia._

… _But sometimes it can be as plain and as seemingly undefended as the door to our hearts._

 **RYOU BAKURA'S NARRATIVE**

I was used to non-existence, to being somewhere else, even when I was in my own home. I was used to being so helpless I didn't know what the thief of the Ring had done, even when he'd used my body to do it. I was used to my last memory being of a friend coming over and my first sight being a broken, empty doll staring up at me from my bedroom floor… a sight so awful it made the few times I'd woken up in a strange room with an actual corpse preferable.

I was used to being gone then suddenly, disorientingly, becoming myself again. It never lasted.

This time was different. Long after I'd stopped believing I'd ever be free, he was gone.

I'd waited a week to be sure, but I'd known from the moment I'd found the Millennium Items he'd left behind. I was used to the Ring turning up unexpectedly. I stared in incomprehension at the other Millennium Item. The Eye stared back at me. I didn't want either of them. There was only one place I could think of to go.

I hadn't really seen the gang in a while. We were friends but we didn't spend much time together. All things considered it was for the best. I'd drifted away after Battle City had ended; they'd let me go. Maybe they felt the same sense of relief I did at the end of each tournament when we wandered off in different directions after waving and saying, "See you later."

It wasn't like I was walking home alone.

I was glad when I reached Yugi's place. He opened the door. It was late enough that the game shop was closed. I followed Yugi into the living room. I wasn't surprised the rest of the gang was there as well.

"The Spirit of the Ring… he's gone," I blurted out as soon as I walked in the room.

"Yeah, we've heard that one before," Jounouchi muttered.

I held out the Eye and the Ring. "It's final this time," I said. I didn't add anything. I couldn't. I didn't know why I was so sure that he was gone for good, and anyway, I had no proof. I wouldn't have believed me either. And it's not like I had a history of being honest on this score.

I'd known at Duelists' Kingdom and all throughout Battle City that I was losing track of time again. I'd suddenly regain an awareness of myself and I'd be some place I didn't remember going to with people backing away or yelling at me for things I didn't remember doing. I'd known what that had to mean. I hadn't told anyone, not even Yugi. I wasn't sure why. Had it simply been wistful thinking… a hope that if I pretended hard enough that everything was okay, it would be? Had I been afraid they'd avoid me if they knew? I'd catch them looking at me questioningly as each new proof that something was very wrong with me came to light. I'd been thankful when some new disaster distracted them every time they came close to demanding an answer.

Or had I kept quiet from an insane impulse to protect my unwanted parasite?

"If he's really gone, you don't look happy about it," Honda said. His voice was heavy with uncertainty, as if he wasn't sure who he was talking to. It weighed me down with the reminder of just how rarely I'd been myself.

I'd always liked Honda. I'd wanted him to like me. I'd been glad when the Spirit of the Ring had saved him at Duelists' Kingdom. I'd hoped that being rescued would wipe away any doubts. It hadn't worked out like that. I frowned at the memory.

"I don't know how I look any more," I said. I held out the Millennium Items again. "Please, take them."

"We should have known you had the Ring when it went missing at Alcatraz. You haven't put it on again, have you? You know how you get. And where did you get Pegasus' Eye from anyway?" Jounouchi asked.

"I don't know why the Eye was in my house. I thought Pegasus had it, too."

They stared at the Millennium Items as if they could spring to life and attack. The Eye rolled over. I wondered if it was deliberate. There was caked blood on its back… Pegasus' blood presumably. I guess I should have cleaned it up, but Pegasus had given up his own eye for the thing… it didn't feel right to erase his blood. It's like the way we cremate people as if turning their bodies to ash will burn away our grief. Death's not that simple.

I thought Yugi had gotten rid of the Spirit of the Ring for good, back when we'd all first met. I'd felt so cheated when he came back. Trying my best hadn't worked. It'd been easier to surrender, to accept that only my death would separate us. Besides, I wasn't sad when I wasn't awake.

"I just want it over with," I repeated, stupidly. "He's gone, and I realized… my sister's really dead. No matter how many letters I write her, she's never going to answer. It was easier to forget all that when he was here."

"You have us. You don't need the Ring. You'll be fine without it," Yugi said. Despite everything that had happened, they all nodded.

"Yeah, like Yugi said," Jounouchi added.

Yugi stared at the items. He looked distracted. He probably was. His _partner –_ a word I couldn't say, even in my mind, without choking on it – was probably reminding him that I was holding the two remaining Millennium Items in my shaking hand. Yugi looked at me, only it wasn't Yugi anymore. His eyes had narrowed; now they were crimson.

"Bakura wouldn't have left these behind unless it served his purpose," the Spirit of the Puzzle observed.

"I know. But I don't know what it was."

"Unless he had no choice… unless the place he was going wouldn't allow him to transport solid objects... unless he was counting on me to bring them, to take his bait." He frowned. "The Spirit of the Ring – did he ever have nightmares?"

"Besides the ones he created for everyone else?" I asked before I could stop myself.

The Spirit of the Puzzle nodded.

"He dreamed of a town burning to the ground over and over. The flames of Kul Elna he called it."

Yugi's Spirit narrowed his eyes still further. They took on the color of dried blood. "Did he say what that meant?"

I shook my head. "He didn't talk to me. Not like that. He boasted; he threatened; he taunted."

"A town burning? Sounds right up his alley. He was probably responsible for all kinds of shit," Jounouchi said.

"No. He wasn't gloating. Whenever he had this nightmare, it was like seeing a part of him he kept hidden… like walking into a secret room in a tomb. He wasn't the King of Thieves or some mystical spirit from a magical artifact there. He was a teenager like me. All of a sudden, I wasn't alone; it was almost like we were a real team, or something. That's how I know what he was feeling. He was in mourning. He wanted someone to be with him; he wanted someone else to know, to remember them."

"Remember who?" Anzu asked.

"He lost someone he loved in that fire, maybe everyone. The fire at that village was howling with his grief, even as it fed on it," I said. "I think he lost his world and he's drifted ever since."

"You never asked him about his family? About why he was here?" Anzu asked.

I shuddered, remembering the times I'd tried. "He wouldn't tell me. He didn't want any ties with the living. He didn't want me. He needed me because he needed a body. He called me his landlord – and he resented that, too."

"What gives? You're being pretty sympathetic about that psycho. It's almost like you know him or something," Jounouchi said.

"You try living with a vengeful, grieving ghost in your body, in your brain. You'd learn a lot too, and most of it you'd give anything to forget. This much was clear: he didn't want any distractions from his mission."

"What was his mission?" the Spirit of the Puzzle asked quietly.

"I don't know," I repeated. I could guess what they were thinking. "I'm a coward, okay?"

Unexpectedly Yugi's eyes closed at that. When they opened, they were purple again; he seemed slightly smaller.

"Don't say that! You're not a coward," Yugi said.

I shrugged helplessly. "I didn't want to find out that he missed his family and wanted them back and wrote them letters and stuff. I know I should have hated him. I didn't want us to have anything in common. I didn't want to feel his grief, to have it mix with mine. But it did, and neither of us could stop it."

Yugi's wide purple eyes looked slightly unfocused. "Remember what Isis said," Yugi mumbled more to his partner than to me. "They're the last two items you need to recover your memory."

He paused, then suddenly turned to me. "When did he leave?"

"About a week ago. I wanted to make sure it was real this time."

"That clinches it!" Yugi said excitedly. He was talking to the Spirit of the Puzzle. I could tell. "That's when you and Kaiba played his game for the first time!"

I didn't have a clue what they were talking about, but I was used to being confused.

"He said I'd be his permanent host. At first it didn't sound so bad. Then people got hurt." I wasn't sure if I was trying to explain things to them or myself.

Yugi put his hand on my shoulder. "You wanted a friend. I know what that's like."

I wondered again what would have happened if I had wound up with the Puzzle and Yugi, the Ring. Would this be my gang of friends while he stood on the fringe, afraid to get closer? Would I be the one looking at Yugi sympathetically, trying to make him feel better, like he wasn't alone? But I wouldn't have wished my demon on him. Yugi was too decent. I wasn't sure I would have wished the Spirit of the Ring anywhere, if only he'd left my friends alone.

"I wanted to disappear," I corrected. "And I did. I just didn't want anyone else to get hurt."

"Well, I trust the friend who stood up to the Spirit of the Ring for us – the friend who saved us from him," Yugi said.

"Thanks. But I don't think I can be the kind of friend you deserve, yet. I have one more letter to Amane to write – to say good-bye. I have to let go of my ghosts – all of them - before I'll be ready to be friends with the living. But I'm going to try."

"We'll be waiting," Yugi promised.

I smiled as I gave him the Millennium Items and headed for the door. In a way, nothing had changed since the day I'd first put on the Ring and wished I could vanish into it. My sister was still dead; my father still preferred to ignore my existence. But for the first time since then I felt free, like I had a future of my own to look forward to.

* * *

 **KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

I was back at work the next day. The first thing I did was try to delete my virtual world. I couldn't. I spent the next few hours trying every shortcut and backdoor I could think of, only to confirm what I'd known from my first attempt: if I was going to be able to shut down my virtual world at all, it would have to be done from the inside. Presumably that would be the prize for winning.

By the time I conceded I'd lost control of my own fucking virtual world my desk was bare of ornaments and the floor near the door was littered with their debris. Even the sound of breaking glass hadn't helped. Nothing would until I went back in there and fixed things myself.

Mokuba was all for leaving the virtual world alone and just destroying the VR pods. But I knew better. Things fester. Whatever was there was dangerous and I was the one responsible for turning it loose. I couldn't walk away from that.

Before I could go back though, I had work of my own to sort through. Pegasus had sent over the new cards he was planning to release next. I'd almost finished turning them into holographs. I looked up from my computer when Yami entered the room. I didn't ask how he'd gotten in.

I hate unfinished business. And I'd delayed this task for too long already.

"Thanks. For helping," I said.

He smiled back. It wasn't a gloating smile. "It's okay."

His words were pedestrian, something Yugi would say. This wasn't Yugi, though. There was an edge in Yami's voice, a hint he wasn't used to speaking this softly. Mercy was Yugi's first impulse; honor and retribution were Yami's. I was much more comfortable with the latter than the former.

I guess we were back to our usual relationship, whatever that was.

This was the second time I'd felt like he was inside of me. I'd been alone and defenseless by the time Death-T had ended, determined to stand my ground nonetheless, ready to meet my death as defiantly as I'd lived. I figured whatever happened next would be welcome as long as it put an end to the painful vulnerability I'd felt, watching him approach. The last thing I remembered from that day was Yami invading that private space inside the soul I didn't know I possessed, his eyes blazing with anger and hatred. Then, in that second before my world had shattered, I'd seen something else, something harder to accept than death – comprehension, perhaps – enter those crimson eyes.

I'd returned the favor after a fashion in Noa's virtual world, when I'd found myself in Yami's ridiculously overcrowded soul room, reminding him that life is battle, reminding him to believe in our deck.

Did this latest turn mean that after briefly being even, Yami was one-up on me again? I knew his name now, though. I wasn't sure why that made a difference. But it did.

Yami walked towards my desk, not bothering to pick his way around the broken glass on the floor.

"I thought I'd find you here," he said.

"Where else would I be? I've got a lot to finish up."

"Aborting your plans to turn Kaiba Corporation into a weapons factory? Or simply removing whatever traps you placed in case you lost yourself far enough to try? You got Mokuba out of the line of fire. I doubt you were prepared to let go of Kaiba Corporation any more easily."

I took a breath as Yami walked to the window at the end of the room. It didn't match the others. They were all blue tinged, this one was clear. Up close you could see the pane was thinner… too thin for safety. The others had only the sidewalk below. This one was directly above the corner of the metal pavilion over the entrance, where a falling body wouldn't hurt any innocent bystanders below.

"I think you had an escape planned – one that would keep everyone but you safe. Tell me… how hard would you advise me to press against this window?" he asked.

I shrugged. "As hard as you like. It's your funeral."

"Yes. I thought it might be."

He hadn't hesitated. He'd walked to that fucking window like he'd known it would be there.

"Okay, how did you know?" I asked.

"You always have a back-up plan. And it's almost always self-destructive."

I grunted. "I better call maintenance and get them to fix it before someone gets hurt."

I stared at the pane of glass a moment longer. I'd just thanked Yami. I owed him. I managed to keep the resentment out of my voice as I said, "I wonder: if I hadn't sent for you, could I have won on my own? I decided I couldn't risk it – not after almost killing Mokuba the last time." My gaze flicked to the window and back. "I know I could have fought him to a tie."

"No. Your death would have been a loss."

It was unexpectedly nice to hear. It didn't stop me from arguing. There was something about challenging Yami, knowing he'd push back just as hard, that helped me sort things out.

"The weak lose and die. The strong win and survive. I did both or neither. I don't know which one I was," I said.

"Choosing to live isn't a weakness. You fought back just like always. Trust me. Knowing a rival's weakness is important – but so is knowing his strengths."

We'd reached the heart of the matter. "How can anything but unaided victory be a strength?" I asked.

"Are we back to that again? There's no shame in asking for help." Yami raised his voice as if the louder he spoke the more convincing his words would become. Yami wasn't bullshitting me though. He believed every overly idealistic word.

"Maybe for you." I grimaced. "That doesn't mean I wanted you to see me…"

"Trapped?" Yami said.

I laughed, then sobered. "You'd be the expert at that. Do you hate it?"

"How can I hate being part of Yugi? How can I hate the condition of my existence? But… sometimes… when we talk, I fear afterwards the confines of my Puzzle will feel unendurable close; that I'll grow to hate the limitations on my life, to want all the things I'll never have the chance to experience. If we're to talk of our fears, those are mine."

I'd known Yami had vulnerabilities. Everyone does. I'd spent enough time searching his out so I could use them against him the next time we dueled… always aware that he was the one person who knew me too well for comfort. That first time, after Death-T, I'd had no choice. I'd lost and the penalty had been letting him walk into my soul as though he owned it. This time opening the door had been _my_ choice, but it had been a decision born of compulsion, not desire. I'd needed his help too desperately to quibble about accepting the baggage that accompanied it.

But now Yami was offering me the fears he could have kept hidden, as if honesty was its own imperative… as if my forced confidences had called for freely given ones in return. Did he gain or lose from each exchange?

"You could have kept silent," I observed.

"I wanted you to know. We're friends, Kaiba. I trust you."

He said it casually, as if trust was as common and unremarkable as a four-star monster in a pack of cards. I rolled my eyes at the thought that someone could find something as difficult to negotiate as friendship that easy.

He caught my snort of laughter and glared at me, suddenly, unaccountably angry. "How dare you laugh at my fears? How dare you taunt me for revealing them? I thought you had grown beyond that, Seto Kaiba! You can't call on the power of unity when it suits you and then make a mockery of it after it has served its turn."

"That wasn't what I was doing, and you know it – or you should by now! Do you really think I value nothing except expediency?" I demanded.

I stared at him as defiantly as if a dueling field lay between us. If he could say that to me and mean it, then nothing had changed since we'd first met, since all the times he'd told me I'd disappointed him. Why had he helped me then? Out of friendship? Or out of pity for someone he considered too weak to know or learn how to face the world with integrity?

His face softened as he absorbed my words, until it was set in its familiar, slightly challenging lines. His smirk returned. "Then prove me wrong," he said.

"I thought friendship existed beyond proof," I shot back.

His expression laced with triumph as he said, "Well spoken, Kaiba. It does indeed."

I grunted. It still felt like a duel, like all those times Yami challenged me to look beyond the anger and pride that had enabled me to rise like a dragon above the rubble of my past.

"You search so stubbornly for answers, no matter how hard they are to accept. Yet you never give up," he said. His smile was warmer now. I felt myself relax for the first time since entering my office.

"If there's a power beyond self-reliance, I need to know. As for the rest…" I shrugged. "I have to keep moving forward. How else can I make sure that the road ahead is clear for Mokuba?"

Yami sighed, but my words were as unanswerable as I'd expected. I bit back a grin of my own as I turned back to the duel monsters on my monitor. There must be something to this whole power of unity thing if it could leave Yami without a word to say.

* * *

 _  
**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter and for helping me sort out my thoughts on Bakura and the gang.**   
_

_**Thanks to e ** _vermillion_****_ for catching a pair of typos in the last chapter. I really appreciate the chance to fix them. I should have learned by now not to change things _after_ sending it to Bnomiko to beta, and I want to stress that all mistakes are mine.

 _ **Thanks to Kagemihari and Splintered**_ **Star** for listening to me ramble (or obsess, depending on your point of view) on all things Bakura.

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** It wasn't until I reread the manga, skipping everything but the scenes with Bakura (any Bakura) in them, and skimmed the Yu-Gi-Oh! episode guide that I realized how rarely Ryou Bakura appears when he's not being taken over by the Spirit of the Ring, brainwashed by Malik, or both, from the latter parts of Duelists' Kingdom through Battle City.

Actually the pattern that emerges from reading that way is pretty funny. The gang would either be with Ryou Bakura or meet up with him. He would immediately do something weird that would have them wondering just which Bakura they were dealing with (or being sure Ryo Bakura had been taken over) – and then something would distract them and by the time they met up again, they'd apparently forgotten all the times they wondered about his behavior before, up until the events on the Battle Blimp leave no room for doubt. I was mumbling, "These people have the attention span of fleas!" by the third time this happened.

I find Ryou Bakura interesting (I find the Thief King interesting for other reasons) because he's part of the group, and yet slightly apart at the same time; within their friendship circle, but not at its core. He's too taken up with his own problems (and too often taken over by the Spirit of the Ring) to completely and comfortably fit in. Anyway, this is the first time I've included him, so I'm curious what people think.

 **Roman Gods Note:** When it comes to assigning a god or goddess to watch over every possible object or activity, it's hard to beat the Romans. The goddess for the Roman sewer system was Cloacina, and Aequitas was the god of merchants and sellers. They really did have at least four gods involved in doors and their component parts. Janus was the God of doorways, Portunes was the god of keys, Carnea was the goddess of door handles, and Cardea was the goddess of thresholds and door hinges. I absolutely adored the idea of a god of door hinges. I think if I was Cardea, I'd be a bit ticked off though. My attitude would probably be something along the lines of, "Neptune gets oceans and storms, and I get door hinges?"

Anyway, it was kind of funny, because I'd written the chapter before realizing that the thing that ties it together for me was the idea of letting people in, and how often the characters did that before they were ready, even if they were committed to doing so.

 **Amane note:** I included an Author's Note on Amane in Chapter 6 when I updated. There really isn't much on her in the manga. She's Ryou's sister. She and their mom died in a car crash. You see Ryou writing her a letter. The thing is, it isn't like an "I miss you" kind of letter – it's a chatty kind of letter, like the kind you'd write to someone who's alive. This is my own interpretation – but if you look at his deck (and he created it, not the Thief King) its centerpiece is an Ouija Board, which is also about communicating with the dead.

 **Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my LJ account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated. As per FFNet's policy I can no longer post responses at the end of each chapter.

 _Comments would be adored…_


	7. Cybernetic Revolution

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** The first narrative in this chapter directly follows Kaiba's narrative at the end of Chapter 6, without any elapse of time.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 7: CYBERNETIC REVOLUTION**

 _There's something to be said for getting by… for using the strategies that have served us in their fashion in the past, for hanging on to them even after they have long outlived their purpose. Unless, of course, you're a character in a story. For there, the status quo exists only to be upended._

 _Once upon a time, the call to change was as clear as a trumpet blast. A herald rode into a sleepy village to announce that the king had misplaced his daughter or a party of knights galloped through town recruiting for their latest quest. Today, messages are accompanied by simpler, easier to ignore, sounds… the buzz of a doorbell as a not-quite-expected visitor arrives, the chimes of annoying electronic music as your computer starts up, the soft drone of a conversation with a friend._

 _We hear the cry, "Ready… Set… Go," from childhood onwards, heralding every race. But we rarely stop to wonder why the first two words in that phrase seem so much less important than the last…_

 **YAMI'S NARRATIVE**

I was still in Kaiba's office. Our argument seemed over for the moment. I glanced at the broken glass scattered on the floor by the door and decided not to ask. Kaiba was staring intently at his computer. He was ignoring me, but for once it didn't seem deliberate or insulting. He was comfortable enough with my presence to continue with his self-imposed tasks, whatever they were. A strangely companionable silence settled on the room.

"What are you doing?" I finally asked him.

"I told you I have work to finish up before I go back into my game," he said without looking away from the monitor. I wondered if I was imagining the defensive note in his voice. "I know I have a responsibility to fix this. I'll live up to it," he added.

"I wasn't criticizing," I said, as mildly as I could. The past few days had clearly taken their toll on more than his temper – although that had been the first casualty. But Kaiba was looking better this morning; the smudges under his eyes were drawn in charcoal, not ink. A delay might not be a bad thing, if he used the time to recover.

Kaiba nodded and went back to his computer screen. "Pegasus is planning to release a new series of cards. I'm almost done turning them into holograms. If I finish and get Pegasus's approval I can send them to production. That way, no one has to know I'm gone. Mokuba can cover for me."

"New cards?" I asked. Despite everything, I was excited by the news. Automatically I rolled my chair around his desk to see what he was doing. Kaiba had a foil card propped up in front of him. I read its name: "Shimmer Dragon." Kaiba was painstakingly redoing the dragon's scales on his computer, removing them one by one, then applying a glitter pattern to each edge and polishing the center to a soft sheen before replacing it and moving on to the next. The Art Nouveau pattern that emerged along the edges was as elaborate and as delicate as the embroidery on a ceremonial gown. He'd clearly been at it for hours, possibly days. Finally Kaiba grunted in satisfaction. He connected a small holographic projector to the computer, and a miniature dragon flashed to life.

"He's beautiful, Kaiba," I said.

"This was the last card," he said. "I just need to double check the quartet its part of."

A horse trotted out from under the Shimmer Dragon's wing as the monster faded into the background. It was a winged horse, but there the resemblance to Pegasus's namesake ended. This was a young stallion, slightly more than a foal, standing proudly on slightly wobbly legs, his wings beating time with the air.

"Fledgling Grace," I read, looking at the name on the card.

The colt reared up on his hind legs, his wings carrying him into the air. He threw back his head and neighed. His black mane fell against his caramel colored coat. The corners of my mouth lifted. I was always surprised at how playful some of Pegasus's creations could be.

"Wait," Kaiba said, smiling. "The best part's coming."

The horse reared up and slashed at an imaginary foe. His hooves were razor sharp; their sweep caused sparks to fly. Any foe standing in front of him would have been instantly sliced to ribbons. I'd been chuckling at the colt's antics. Now, I'd been reminded that even Pegasus's cutest monsters could turn suddenly, disturbingly, deadly.

I glanced at Kaiba. His grin was wider than ever.

"I love it when he does that," he said with satisfaction.

The card next to Fledgling Grace was titled Phoenix Reborn. Kaiba clicked on an icon and it appeared in front of us, replacing Fledgling Grace's untried colt.

The phoenix regarded us solemnly for a moment. He was peacock beautiful in shades of blue and green, and peacock proud, his arrogance showing in the curve of his neck. Then the color leached out of him, all vitality ebbing until he was little more than a wraith, until he was as insubstantial as I. He raised his phantom wings as though protesting his own extinction, and that motion was like setting a match to a river of gasoline. As the movement of his wings reached its apex, he was engulfed in flame. It burned, but didn't destroy. Instead it ran through him, nourished him, carried him back from non-existence. He was no longer a simple bird; he was fire in avian form. Then, with a sweep of his powerful wings he was aloft, singing as he blazed above us. His voice was vibrant; joyously, exuberantly alive. I shut my eyes against the sight as his song echoed in my ears.

"Is this what it would be like to be reborn? Is this how it would feel?" I asked, wishing it was more than an illusion.

"You should know." Kaiba answered.

"No. I don't," I replied. Kaiba's words reminded me that it would soon be time to change once more, for Yugi to return to the center stage that was his due.

Kaiba's next card was already loading. Its visual effect was so subtle it took me a moment to realize it had begun. The room seemed lighter. There was a break in the clouds that it took me a moment to realize shouldn't exist indoors, shouldn't grace any ceiling but the one belonging to the gods. The sunlight was stronger now, filling the room, iridescently beautiful; little rainbow prisms mingled with its pure light as it fell to the earth, calling forth answering sparkles from the broken glass by the door.

I looked at the card leaning against the monitor. It was titled, "Light of Truth, Light of Hope."

The other three monsters came back to bask in the sun's rays. I was enchanted, but Kaiba's next words broke the spell.

"Pegasus is lazy," Kaiba said, inspecting his dragon again. "He never pays attention to details, and he's gotten worse."

I was no longer surprised that Kaiba and Pegasus's partnership had survived Duelist's Kingdom. Jounouchi had scoffed that neither could resist the opportunity to turn a quick buck. But he'd been wrong, as he was usually wrong about Kaiba. Beyond the betrayals, the two shared a common vision – and each needed the other to make it live.

And after seeing how content Kaiba had been with his task, I wondered if Pegasus knew what he was doing better than Kaiba had learned to recognize. For the tall duelist had never learned to see atonement in others.

We watched his miniature dragon fly around the room. Fledgling Grace reared up to join him in flight. Kaiba took a deep breath.

"I thought Gozaburo died for good in that virtual world he made for Noa. I should have known it wasn't going to be that simple."

I nodded.

"I was doing a final check of my virtual world before Mokuba got done with school. We were going to play it together. I could tell something was wrong from the minute I went in. I was careless. I got stung by Injection Fairy." Kaiba swallowed and looked down. He shook his bangs out of his eyes and repeated, "It was Gozaburo. I could feel him spreading like a virus through my system, like a poison in my bloodstream. He wanted to take over, just like before. I built the damn game to try and get rid of him, to get rid of the anger, hatred and bitterness that he branded into my heart… and I let him in all over again."

It didn't matter that I knew or had guessed everything he was saying. It was good to hear Kaiba talk. Kaiba looked away. My hand ached with the effort of holding back, of keeping from reaching out to turn his face to mine so I could get a good look at his eyes.

"He's gone now." I said quietly.

"Where's he gone to?" Kaiba challenged. "I couldn't delete the game from here. You saw how much damage he did the last time he invaded a virtual world and used it as his base of operations. I have to stop him."

"Not alone."

"It's my game. My problem," Kaiba said, stubbornly.

"It's more complicated than that. Bakura came by this morning…" I paused when I saw Kaiba trying to place the name. "The white-haired boy who was in the Battle Blimp hospital room at Battle City."

Kaiba nodded.

"He gave us this…" I continued, taking the Eye and the Ring out of Yugi's backpack and showing them to Kaiba before returning them. "It's the last two Millennium Items. I have the other five. Supposedly they unlock my memory. There was a Spirit in that Ring…"

"Just like you?" Kaiba asked.

"No, he's nothing like me," I said sharply. "But if he's gone from the Ring, and from the poor boy whose body he invaded, there's only one place he could have gone. And only one way he could have gotten there. I must have carried him in when we tested your game. My Puzzle was made to store souls. Maybe it had a stowaway."

I ignored Kaiba's snort of laughter.

"I think my being there when I tested that game, changed things. I think it set up the chain of events that led here. I remember holding the Puzzle… suddenly feeling like it was a homing beacon."

"For what?"

"I don't know. There's only one way to find out. This concerns my honor as well."

Kaiba nodded curtly. I wasn't surprised. No one with his keen sense of obligation would deny mine. He pulled something up on his monitor, frowned, and said, "Illogical as everything you've said is, it fits. Look at the codes for my game." I stared at his computer screen. Only one thing was familiar. I assume Kaiba wasn't the one who'd inserted the hieroglyphics.

"It looks like a blessing for new ventures," I said.

"There's more. I think it's been added since I was in there last." Kaiba scrolled down.

"The portal is real," I read aloud, and turned to stare at Kaiba.

"You're the expert on occult bullshit. What the fuck does that mean?" he asked me.

"You can read it too," I pointed out. "Why should my guess be any better?"

"That doesn't mean I know why it's there or what it means."

I realized this was the first time Kaiba had acknowledged being able to read hieroglyphics.

"I shouldn't be able to read hieroglyphics," Kaiba added, sounding offended. "It's a mockery of everything I believe in. I've fought all my life for the right to determine my own road. And I'm not letting anyone – not Gozaburo and not some obsolete set of gods – turn me into their Bait Doll."

I looked at the hieroglyphics again. "I've known something like this was coming ever since Battle City, that I needed to collect all seven items, that I needed to find my memories."

"Why didn't you go after the Millennium Items earlier? Why wait for them to come to you?" Kaiba asked.

"I wanted… I wanted to enjoy the summer," I answered. Now it was my turn to look away. Why do our desires always seem so superficial when said aloud? For once I'd indulged mine. Now I wondered what I'd set in motion.

"What?" Kaiba yelled. I winced.

"I was ready to face whatever happened… to disappear if that was what was required. I knew there was an ancient battle to complete, that it would probably end in my losing this world, leaving my friends. I wanted more time. You paid the price for that. It seems that whomever I'm destined to fight wasn't willing to wait on my convenience. I'm ready to face that battle now, whatever comes. I think I need to bring the Items with me when I return into the game with you."

Kaiba grimaced as he always did at the mention of the Millennium Items. Then, grudgingly, he nodded. "I don't get it, but…" He shrugged. "It's a two player game now. You get to pick your own equipment. I made a rough copy of your Puzzle when I created your avatar. It shouldn't take much to punch it up. And between whatever images I can get off our database, security cameras, and the Domino Museum, I can create avatars of the rest. Hell, I can even photograph them, if I need to."

I stared at him blankly. He correctly interpreted the confused look on my face.

"You didn't think you could physically carry that stuff into a _virtual_ world, did you? We're not actually going anywhere but to my computer lab, remember?"

I didn't answer. Kaiba was right. His virtual world was so real I'd forgotten. Nor was I sure that the barrier between the world he'd created and ours was as impenetrable as Kaiba made it sound.

"I can copy your backpack," he said, pointing to Yugi's school bag, "so your avatar can carry them – or you can access the Items through the game's inventory screen."

"Thank you," I told him.

Kaiba shrugged again. "Like you said, it's your fight too." He frowned thoughtfully. "It'll mean delaying a day before we can go back in."

"Just as well. That way you can get some sleep before we head back to your virtual world," I said.

"You might like taking time off. I don't," he snapped.

"My wanting to spend time with my friends before possibly relinquishing them for all eternity is none of your damn business, you son of a bitch – not when I've fulfilled every responsibility asked of me – as you well know!" I shot back, truly outraged that Kaiba would still seek to attack after everything.

"Then don't tell me what to do like you own me!" he yelled.

"You obviously don't even have enough sense to know when to go to bed! Not that you've had much experience standing lately." I knew it was his bruised pride speaking. I didn't care. He'd taunted me.

"Hah! It didn't take much for you to throw my weakness back in my face! I know what you're thinking – that just because you helped out, now you get to order me around." He shook his head in his agitation. At last I got a look at his eyes. There was more than hurt pride there; he was hurting, period. Asking for help had clearly been more painful than the penalty game that had followed. I felt an unwilling sympathy… and a slightly guilty pleasure that my opinion clearly mattered more than he'd ever admit.

"You ignorant oaf!" I answered. "I've been trying as hard as I could to make sure you know how much I respect you. Are you calling me a liar? I should have known you'd be too stubborn and stupid for me to get that message through your thick skull with anything less than a lightening bolt."

"I have enough sense to run an international corporation! What about you?" Kaiba asked, the anger leaving his voice.

"If we are to use worldly power as a measure, have you forgotten I was a pharaoh?" I said icily.

"It doesn't count if you can't remember it." Kaiba smirked as if he had scored a point. It was an expression I planned to wipe off his face.

"I remember beating you. Repeatedly," I replied.

"I'm ready for a rematch whenever you are!" he said, jumping up and pulling his deck out of his coat pocket.

I glanced at Kaiba's computer, wondering what it would be like to duel with Pegasus's new cards, trying to figure out what I'd remove to fit one or two of them in my deck. Kaiba followed my gaze and as usual, misunderstood it. He grunted.

"Yeah, you're right. Business before pleasure. We have a job to finish first. I better get started," he said, sinking back into his chair. "You can't take that Puzzle off, can you?"

I shook my head. "Not without disappearing."

"Come here then, so I can get a good look at it. I need to make sure it matches the images I have."

What he was saying made sense. I was slightly disconcerted by the request anyway. Kaiba was sitting with his long legs straddling either side of his chair. I moved forward until my own legs were almost touching the edge of his seat. It was the first time I'd ever been taller than him.

"May I?" he asked, reaching for my Puzzle.

I nodded. I felt a slight tug as the chain pulled against my neck when he took my Puzzle in his hands. I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry, as he studied it. My Puzzle looked suddenly unfamiliar in his cupped hands. His fingers were long and slender. I'd seen them dance lightly across his keyboard. I'd seen them draw cards from his deck. Then he'd turned those same cards into shuriken; had thrown them hard enough to draw blood.

He ran his forefinger along the Puzzle's sides, across its surface, the pad of his finger lightly dipping in and out of the grooves in its geometric designs. I could almost imagine I felt his touch, as if the gold of my Puzzle was conducting heat and electricity.

"I've never seen it this close before. The workmanship is exquisite," he said.

His low voice reverberated in the hushed room. Why hadn't I noticed how quiet Kaiba's office was when we weren't screaming at each other, before? He looked up. Seen from this angle, his eyes were even more intensely blue, and a shade lighter. I was aware of how well his lashes framed them, beneath the thin, uncompromising line of his brows. His face was an odd combination of fragility and strength. I felt an impulse to take a step backwards… and an answering one to lean in closer. I wondered if he found the unexpected change in perspective as unsettling as I.

"This is really your home? It doesn't make sense," Kaiba said. "How could you be tied to a trinket?"

"I don't know. It's part of why I want to find my memories." I didn't bother to remind Kaiba it was a quest he'd always made fun of.

"You're bigger than that." Kaiba paused. "I didn't mean to imply otherwise," he said stiffly.

"I know," I answered.

I felt a slight shock as Kaiba let go of the Puzzle. He reached for the screen, calling up and assembling different views of my Puzzle, adding highlights in some places and deepening shadows in others.

"Done," he announced.

I looked at the replica on his screen. He tapped it and the Puzzle appeared as a holograph in front of us, real enough to touch, yet as insubstantial as my hold on this world. It slowly rotated then turned point to base, so I could inspect it from all angles.

"It's perfect, Kaiba," I said.

"Of course," he answered, but for once his voice had lost its usual arrogance. I looked down; I was still not used to seeing him from this vantage point. Kaiba had released my Puzzle from his grip, but I'd forgotten to take a step back. My legs still rested against his chair, were still completing the triangle formed by the angle of his legs. I swallowed and moved back. I reaching into Yugi's backpack blindly, pulled out the Millennium Eye and gave it to Kaiba.

His fist closed around it, as if it took an effort of will to look at the Eye calmly instead of dashing it against the nearest wall. Another silence settled on the room, this one not as comfortable or warm. I gave a sigh of relief when Kaiba once again announced he was finished. Whatever his thoughts on the Eye itself, or its previous owner, Kaiba had once again replicated it perfectly. It gazed back at me, balefully, the hardness of its expression matching Kaiba's own.

I repackaged the Eye. I looked out the window, surprised to see how low the sun had gotten. "I can't trespass on Yugi any further. Can we – or rather, you and Yugi – finish tomorrow?"

Kaiba nodded and surprised me by packing up his briefcase and heading out the door with me. We rode the elevator in silence, but I couldn't resist saying as we parted in the lobby, "Good. Only a fool would go into this game unrested. It's a relief to see, you're not quite that."

For once Kaiba didn't answer.

* * *

 **KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

I hated the thought this bullshit could be real enough to intrude on my life. It had been a good thing the Eye was unexpectedly solid. If the gold had been thin enough to crush, I would have done it, just to prove I was the one in charge. I'd had to settle for capturing it electronically, putting its image in my own private jail. It wasn't the same as grinding it under my heel.

The Puzzle had been different. Just holding it… seeing how finely it was made, how carefully the pieces fit… knowing I could flick it apart with my thumb and Yami would disappear… realizing I was holding not just Yami, but his trust in my hands. That had been unsettling too. Anger I was used to. This was different.

I'd never been so physically close to another human being as I'd been to Yami just now… not to anyone but Mokuba, not for that long a space of time, not in more years than I cared to remember… not unless a fight was involved. This had almost felt like one, but I wasn't sure why. I hadn't laid a finger on him, except once, when my knuckles had grazed his chest as I'd turned the Puzzle, trying for a closer look.

Nor had that been the only unsettling event of the day. For someone who spent most of his time napping inside a puzzle, Yami had been pretty preoccupied with _my_ sleep schedule. I believed him when he said that it wasn't a sign of disrespect. I just didn't know what it _was_ exactly. Now that I'd acknowledged we were friends, it probably meant he felt authorized to offer unsolicited advice. I shook my head, knowing there was more. There'd been something disturbingly almost-familiar about it, something that felt like it existed on the edge of my memory.

I was glad I had the drive home to clear my head. Yugi would be the one coming back tomorrow. I wasn't surprised. We weren't dueling. But for the first time since I'd known him, I'd felt like Yami had backed away, like his retreat wasn't simply strategic. I wondered if he felt the same need I did to sort out and file away my thoughts.

Mokuba opened the door for me when I arrived back at the mansion. It was the first time we'd both been fully awake at the same time in days. He'd been asleep in a chair in my room when I'd gotten up this morning. I'd carried him back to his own bed.

"I'm glad you didn't stay late at work," he said.

I nodded. "Give me a minute and I'll be ready for dinner."

We ate in silence. It was only after the servants had cleared the table and we were upstairs in the privacy of Mokuba's bedroom, that I realized: although I'd come home to talk, I had no idea what to tell Mokuba. That I was going to leave him again? That I couldn't tell any more if I was keeping or breaking my promises?

It was easier to talk about business.

"I couldn't delete the game, not from my office, not even from the mainframe. I got Pegasus's approval of the new holograms. I've already sent the schematics to production. If things go as planned I'll be done before anyone realizes I was gone."

"So you're going back in," Mokuba said. It wasn't really a question.

"The day after tomorrow. It's my responsibility. I have to fix this."

"The day _after_ tomorrow?" Now there was a question in his voice.

"Yeah. I have to edit and upload avatars of those Millennium Items Yugi's always going on about. I should be done by tomorrow."

"What? Why?" Mokuba asked, his eyebrows disappearing into his bangs.

"When I went back to look at the coding some of it was written in hieroglyphics." I shrugged. "That's Yami's territory, not mine. He thinks his Puzzle might have been responsible for some of the changes. He feels the same obligation I do. It's hard to argue when there are fucking incantations written into my program."

"Yami's going with you?" Mokuba pressed his lips together. It looked like he was thinking, but that wasn't it. He was upset.

"I asked for his help. I traded on his sense of responsibility. I can't deny it now. The two of us – or I guess the three of us, including Yugi, are going back."

"I want to go too!" he yelled.

"No."

Mokuba didn't argue. He went to his desk instead. "I figured you'd be going back into the game. I've thought about how we can keep things quiet."

He handed me a folder. I read it carefully, my pride in him increasing with each well thought out bullet point.

"This is perfect, Mokuba."

"Good enough that you think I can help tomorrow? Good enough for you to take me along?"

"You're always good enough, Mokuba!" I said sharply. "That's got nothing to do with it. You're staying."

"Why won't you take me? Don't you trust me? I'm going, Nisama!"

There was no way I was taking him into what had become an unpredictable nightmare world, but in a way I was relieved he was arguing. He never demanded on helping anymore in the face of my refusal. He hadn't since the day he'd insisted on being one of the challengers at Death-T. Mokuba kept saying that was behind us. I hadn't been sure, especially since I'd seen how badly he'd been scared the night I'd sent him running off to find Yugi and Yami.

"Of course I trust you," I said softly. "You think I don't know what you did all those months I was in a coma, how far you were willing to go? It's not about that. But you're asking me to knowingly put you in danger." I swallowed, thinking of Gozaburo… of Death-T. "I know what your nightmare was about the other night, Mokuba. Your whole life, you've paid for my decisions. I'm not doing that again."

"It was just a stupid nightmare! It doesn't mean anything! I swear it!" he yelled.

"What about the other night when I kicked you out of the house? You can't dismiss that so easily. I didn't want to scare you. But I did and we both know why."

"I should have trusted you. I should have known better. I'm sorry, Nisama," he wailed.

"Don't be. You took all the available information and came to the logical conclusion."

"No I didn't. Because I know you. Please. I'm sorry."

Every word that came out of my mouth was just making things worse. I hated seeing him plead like this. Not to me. Not to anyone. I tried to explain.

"I don't blame you for believing me when I was doing my best to be convincing. I couldn't think of what else to do without tipping my hand, and I figured at least that way you'd be safe, whatever happened. It's all I want, Mokuba."

"If you're not mad at me, why won't you let me come with you?" His eyes were bright with tears. I couldn't afford to budge.

"Drop it, Mokuba. I don't want my game to kill you. That's final. Don't ask me to risk your life." Now it was my turn to beg. "Please."

Mokuba nodded. "I love you too, Nisama. Always." He gestured towards the unused side of his double bed. "Do you mind sleeping here?" he asked. "I don't want you to go."

"Scoot over," I said with a grin, as I lay down next to him. "I hate being away from you too. You're the reason I can keep fighting, keep moving towards a new future."

"I understand, Nisama. You're right. I'm sorry. I shouldn't ask you to pay for my decisions."

He'd gotten the wording backwards, but I sighed with relief. Now that everything was settled, I could face the morning. I could even rest tonight.

* * *

 _ **Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter and for making sure Kaiba sounded like he was computer literate.**_ It's hard writing about a technological genius when your idea of a nifty trick is turning the computer on. I'm just thankful most of the technology I'm writing about is imaginary, anyway.

 _ **Thanks to**_ _**Isodia Silvertongue and changeling17**_ _for pointing out that Neptune was the Roman god of the sea and that Poseidon was the Greek version. It was such a silly mistake to make – thanks for giving me a chance to correct it._

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Mokuba insists on challenging Yugi – both before and during Death-T, despite his brother's orders not to. Mokuba's trying to prove that he can be a help to his brother. But Kaiba misreads this, and assumes if Mokuba is old enough to challenge Yugi, then he's old enough to be a potential opponent for Kaiba as well. It's as if he sees Mokuba as either a child or a threat. One thing that struck me throughout Battle City, DOMA, and the Grand Prix is how hesitant Mokuba is to challenge his older brother in any way in the manga or subtitled anime. The closest he comes is at Alcatraz when he protests that it's not drag Yugi and his friends into their pain by blowing up the island with the gang still on it. It blows over very quickly; Kaiba is annoyed that Mokuba would even think he was planning to blow everyone else up. However, it made me wonder if possibly both brothers are a little afraid of the consequences of getting into a conflict with each other, since the last time the results were so disastrous.

 **Pegasus and Kaiba note:** I've always been interested at how symbiotic the relationship between Industrial Illusions and Kaiba Corporation is, how it really is a true partnership. Pegasus may have hand drawn all the cards, but in a sense, Kaiba is the one who brings them to life.

 **Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my LJ account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated. As per FFNet's policy I can no longer post responses at the end of each chapter.

 _Comments would be adored…_


	8. Dark Beginnings

**CHAPTER 8: DARK BEGINNINGS**

 _Sometimes adventure takes us by surprise. Characters stumble into their journeys as unexpectedly as falling down a rabbit hole and through a looking-glass. But often, there's a moment of choice. Dorothy might have been blown to Oz by a stray tornado, but she set her ruby slippered feet down the yellow brick road of her own accord._

 _For characters who are still safe in their un-tornadoed homes, who have not yet reached their Oz, in whatever realm it may lie, there's a moment when they stand at the threshold, a moment when they can refuse to pass the door. Is it that no one ever rejects adventure's call? Or simply that no one ever tells tales about those that do?_

 **YUGI'S NARRATIVE**

I packed my bag. It was time to head off to Kaiba Corporation so Kaiba could make avatars of the remaining Millennium Items. I couldn't help feeling a little shy about spending the whole day there. I liked Kaiba. But it'd probably take a week of being marooned on a dessert island together for the two of us to figure out how to keep a conversation going.

"When you get done resting, let me know," I told Yami as I walked towards the Kaiba Corporation tower, "so I'll have someone to talk to while Kaiba glares at me for not being you."

Yami laughed and said, "Think of it as a game – and an intriguing one." He sounded pleased with himself – and like he thought he was giving me a treat. But Yami's ideas of fun weren't always mine. He liked arguing more than I did – or maybe Kaiba just brought that side of him out. Because there was no denying Yami got a kick out of their fights… that he liked them as much as their duels.

Kaiba took a good look at me when I came through his office door and frowned. I guess that made it unanimous: none of us were thrilled with the substitution of me for Yami. I caught myself before I apologized for being in my own body. He rang for Isono, who smiled at me in recognition and asked if I wanted anything: coffee, tea, soda or a laptop, while I waited.

Kaiba grabbed the Rod out of my backpack, but he didn't get to work right away. Instead he sat there, with the Rod in his hands, just staring at it. When he saw me looking at him, he dropped it on his desk.

"Does it bring up any memories, you know… from the past?" I asked hesitantly. I knew Kaiba hated any mention of reincarnation.

"If you mean did I see someone who looked like me holding it, while I was in what I can only describe as a hallucinatory state, the answer is yes."

"You know it wasn't just a hallucination," I said.

"Since I don't know what it _was_ , I can hardly state what it _wasn't_ ," Kaiba said.

He looked at me for a moment, like he was expecting me to shoot an answer back, just as fast and as definitively. I never knew what to say to his flat pronouncements though, so I kept quiet. Kaiba started working, sometimes taking pictures of the Rod, sometimes focusing on his computer. I played solitaire on my borrowed laptop. I considered checking out a couple of websites Jounouchi had told me about, but there was something about sitting in Kaiba's office and using his computer to look at pictures of hot girls that just felt weird. After about an hour he called me over to look at the replica of the Rod. Yami had told me how real Kaiba's holograms had looked. Seeing them was a different thing. Kaiba might not have believed in the Items – but he sure could recreate them.

"It's amazing. It looks like I could reach out and touch it," I said, managing to keep from trying.

Kaiba grunted. He replaced the Rod in my backpack and brought out the next Item.

"I'm surprised you didn't bring your entourage," Kaiba said as he put the Scales on his desk. "I thought you didn't go anywhere without them."

I almost laughed at the thought of Jounouchi messing up his neat office.

"They're my friends, not my shadows," I told him.

"You have both, then," he said. It was hard to tell if he was joking.

"There's a difference between friends and an entourage, you know," I said.

"No, I don't," he snapped. His tone was uncompromising, but for the second time this morning, there was a challenge in it too. It was almost like he wanted me to argue back. I wondered if this was his way of making conversation – or if he was so used to going at it with Yami that he'd pick a fight with anyone who looked like him.

Something occurred to me. "You think of Yami and me as your friends, don't you?"

He shrugged.

"You would never have let us near your game if you didn't," I pointed out.

"I guess."

"Why don't you feel the same way about the others? What makes us different? Honda got Mokuba away from Pegasus and Anzu's always been there for him."

He frowned. It wasn't a sneer. His eyebrows pulled together. I could almost feel him trying to figure it out. He stared down at his desk as though he expected to find the answer written there.

"I'll have to ask Mokuba. Maybe he figures they're friends," he said finally.

"You get a vote, too," I said, but he'd stopped listening. He'd told me before that he didn't know what friendship was. He'd always said it so sarcastically I'd never stopped to think that maybe it was just the simple truth.

I was relieved when I felt Yami rejoin me. _"How has your day been?"_ he asked.

" _We talked about friendship and destiny,"_ I answered.

" _That must have been a brief conversation,"_ Yami replied, chuckling.

I managed to keep from laughing out loud. Kaiba was so absorbed in duplicating the Scales he might not have noticed if I had, but something told me he'd be offended at the idea Yami and me were laughing at him.

The rest of the day went quickly. Kaiba finished up on the Items, then went to work on my backpack. He copied it perfectly – right down to the faded spots and the broken zipper on the small side compartment.

" _I wouldn't have minded if he'd given me a new one,"_ I mumbled to Yami.

" _Kaiba is a perfectionist,"_ Yami said, sounding almost proud, like Kaiba was some new kind of fusion monster he'd just created, and he was watching it win a duel for the first time.

It was still light out when we headed home. Jichan was waiting with all my favorite foods. We played games all evening – anything but duel monsters – until it was time to go to bed.

Jichan was proud of me, which made me feel great. But he was worried, scared even. I knew he'd be up the next morning to see me off, as if the most important thing was to have a good breakfast before going to fight monsters in a virtual world.

I couldn't sleep. Neither could Yami. I could see his shadowy form on my bed. I was in my pajamas – the blue ones with the little gold stars. So was Yami. It always made me laugh, seeing him in a pair of kid's pajamas I'd never outgrown.

"In a way it's a relief that Millennium Items – or their spirits – are involved. Even Kaiba couldn't deny that this is our business as well as his," Yami said.

"You would have wanted to join in anyway, wouldn't you?" I asked.

Yami nodded, then looked uneasy. "That game… we've never really talked about it," he said. "I was a mere avatar, even more insubstantial than I am now… but I felt so real. Like I was myself for the first time in millennia."

I nodded. I didn't really know what had gone on with Kaiba and Yami hadn't said much. He'd described how the game worked and how it had ended – with a town burning. He'd never really said what he'd thought or felt.

I hadn't asked. It's like the way we could go into each other's soul rooms, but usually didn't. For whatever reason, Yami had wanted to keep this experience to himself. I'd been curious – a little hurt, even, by his silence – but I'd respected it. I hadn't listened in on his conversations with Kaiba. I wanted Yami to feel free to talk without having to weigh the effect of his words on me. Privacy was rare between us and I wanted to give him whatever space I could. Now though, Yami seemed to want to talk.

"Did you like it? Being on your own, I mean," I asked.

He looked away. "I don't know," he said quietly. "It was unfamiliar and I didn't have a chance to get used to it."

"It's okay if you liked it. It makes sense," I said. It really did. I mean, without me he was this great guy all on his own – a pharaoh, even. Without him, I was this crybaby kid everyone picked on.

"No!" he yelled, upset. It was another difference between us. When I caught his stray doubts and insecurities, I let him hide them from me. Yami always argued.

"You're far stronger than I," he continued. "Whenever I've gotten confused, whenever I've thought winning was all that mattered, as on that day on Pegasus' Tower where I would have killed Kaiba – you saw the truth that lies behind any game. Even if I remembered being a pharaoh, I would still know this: you have a wisdom beyond that of kings."

I smiled because Yami wasn't saying it to make me feel better – he really meant it.

Well… and because he was wearing a pair of pajamas with little gold stars all over them.

"That game…" he said. "I was disturbed by it."

"What's bugging you?" I asked.

"It was responding to me, but it was Kaiba's game. The energy… the power… the intelligence. It was like being inside of Kaiba's soul. It was seductive."

"Seductive?" My voice came out a squeak. Luckily Yami was too deep into his own thoughts to notice.

"I hadn't been so close to Kaiba. Not since I'd stood inside his soul room after Death-T. Sometimes I wonder if that created a binding between us neither expected. I saw a child that day… a boy that, despite everything, I wanted to protect. When I entered his virtual world, I felt like I'd seen the man he'd grown into."

"And you still want to protect him?" I asked, the pieces falling into place like a puzzle of their own… his anger at Pegasus… at Noa… at Gozaburo… at anyone who'd ever tried to hurt Kaiba. Here was another thing he'd kept private, and I'd never guessed.

"Even after all that happened at Death-T… there was an intimacy to its ending… to being inside him. It was such a brief experience, but I can't pretend it didn't happen, that it didn't change things, even if I don't know how or why. Then, in his game, I felt the same thing, only stronger, more insistently… the same sense of connection. Of all the reasons to return to his game, this is the most selfish: I want that feeling to continue."

"Maybe Kaiba feels it too. Maybe it's why he could come to you when his game went wrong, why he trusts you," I suggested.

"It's a trust I won't betray. If his game's been tainted… if the ghost of his adoptive father has twisted it in an attempt to get to him again… I will help to set things right," Yami said, glaring at his unseen opponent, issuing his challenge as if Gozaburo or whoever else had had a hand wrecking Kaiba's game could hear him. I'd seen Yami all fired up like this before – when my life, or the lives of our friends, were in danger. Our opponents, whoever they were, didn't know what they were in for.

"Me, too," I assured him. "You know that, don't you?"

"Yes, partner." He let out a breath, paused, then looked at the bed. "To think I chided Kaiba that only a fool would go into this game unrested."

I grinned at him. Yami was right. And we were both finally tired enough to get some sleep. Tomorrow would be a big day.

* * *

 **MOKUBA'S NARRATIVE**

"Mokuba… I have to fix this," Nisama said. Except for the fact he'd been repeating it over and over for days, always in the same tense voice, he could have been describing an ordinary computer glitch.

"I know," I said.

Nisama looked, dissatisfied, at the two non-working virtual reality pods. He touched the screen on the one nearest him. "I thought this was functional," he muttered, staring at the diagnostics display. "Oh well, I don't have time for it now. We only need two working ones anyway."

"This sucks. If your crap all worked, I could be going with you guys," Jounouchi grumbled, as he walked into the computer lab with Yugi and the rest of the gang.

My brother smirked. "No dogs allowed. Maybe those idiots who are always going on about how there's a silver lining have a point, after all."

My brother looked at Yugi, or rather at the backpack that Yugi was carrying.

"Please don't tell me you brought that junk here," he said, groaning.

Yugi nodded.

"What's wrong with you? You were there when I copied your Items into the program's inventory. I wouldn't expect your invisible playmate to get it, but you were born in the 20th century, not 3,000 years ago. What part of _virtual_ world is so fucking hard for you two to understand?"

Yugi looked like he was spacing out for a moment. Then he said, "It just feels like the right thing to do."

My brother shrugged. "It's time to go anyway." He strode over to the first of the VR pods in the room, then turned back to face us. He looked past me, to Isono and Fubeta standing against the wall. A lot was going to be riding on them. I wondered if he was remembering that the last time he'd left me, I'd been kidnapped by my security guards. But these guys were different. They could be trusted.

Nisama must have agreed with me because he took a deep breath, then said. "Mokuba speaks with my voice. Follow his instructions as absolutely as you would mine."

"Of course, Seto-sama!" they said in unison. Their bows were just as synchronized. I wondered if they practiced in private. I stifled a nervous laugh. What was going to happen next was too big for that.

Nisama jumped into the VR pod as if he was jumping into the cockpit of one of his planes. He slid the helmet over his head and lay down, still and silent now, except for his steady breaths; lying as unmoving as if he was in a coma. I looked away.

Yugi hugged his friends. "We'll do our best. I'll miss you guys." He climbed into the second pod, backpack and all. He put on the VR helmet, then lay down, Puzzle firmly cupped in his hands. As soon as his helmeted head touched the back of the pod, there was a blinding flash.

I stared in shock at the empty space where the two pods had been. It took a moment to sink in. Nisama and Yugi had vanished, Virtual Reality pods and all. They'd… disappeared. I could hear Yugi's friends gasping behind me.

"Oh man, was that supposed to happen?" Jounouchi asked.

I swallowed, then straightened up. I didn't bother answering Jounouchi. This didn't change my plans. If anything, it made me even more convinced I was doing the right thing. I'd been carrying Nisama's briefcase ever since we'd left the mansion. I put it on the table, opened it and took out a large envelope, double-checking to see that Nisama's laptop was strapped into place, even though I'd been the one to put it there. I waved to Isono. When he came over, I handed him the envelope and snapped the briefcase shut, saying, "These are my instructions to you."

"We'll carry them out faithfully, Mokuba-sama," he said, bowing as he took the envelope.

"I know," I said. I really did. It was what made everything else possible.

I walked up to Jounouchi and shoved the briefcase into his arms. If nothing else, it would keep his hands occupied and out of trouble.

"You're giving me your brother's briefcase? What am I supposed to do with this thing?" Jounouchi asked, looking as clueless as my brother always claimed he was.

"There's a laptop inside. It's got the computer coding for my brother's game and some other stuff. Someone needs to have a record of what it looked like originally. The computer doesn't have any Internet capabilities. That way no one can mess with it."

"Hey, take it easy, buddy. You're not making any sense," Jounouchi said.

"Why are you giving this stuff to us?" Honda asked suspiciously.

I didn't answer; I slipped my locket off my neck instead. It had a GPS tracking tag stuck on it. I stared at it, puzzled. Nisama must have put it on my locket while I was asleep. He'd been playing with a pair of GPS trackers all morning before dropping one of them in the briefcase. I peeled off the tag in case it was important and stuck it in my pocket. I held out the locket to Anzu.

She took it without thinking, then said, as if she wasn't already holding it in her hand, "You can't give me your photo, Mokuba. I know how much it means to you."

"It's all right. I don't need a photo. I have the real thing – and I'm never letting him go. Besides, you'll need it. Behind the photo is the access card to Kaiba Corporation's mainframe."

"Don't talk like you're leaving us, Mokuba," Anzu said.

"I am. I'm going after my brother." I turned to Isono and Fubeta. "Don't let anyone stop me. Those are my orders. I'm leaving Kaiba Corporation in your hands. I know you won't let me down. The main thing is: don't let anyone know we're gone, and help Yugi's friends as much as you can." It struck me that, besides Nisama and Yugi, everyone I cared for and trusted was in this room. I turned to the gang. "I like you guys. I know you'll find a way to help. I'm counting on you, even. But you just don't get it and you never have. Nisama's my brother. I'm going after him. That's all there is to it."

"You can't go anywhere, Mokuba. The pods are gone. The ones that are left don't work. There's nothing you can do," Anzu said.

I grinned as I walked to the nearest pod. I typed a couple of commands into the console. The diagnostics screen changed from red to green.

"All systems operational," said the computer's mechanical voice.

It was fun seeing their faces, knowing I'd outsmarted everyone – even my brother.

"There's no way I could have disabled the pod and fixed it instantly – but hacking into the diagnostics program to make it look like something was wrong? Now that was child's play. See you guys later!"

I jumped into the pod and jammed the VR helmet on my head before anyone could stop me.

* * *

 **ANZU'S NARRATIVE**

For the second time that morning I saw a friend disappear right in front of me. I didn't realize I was crying until I wiped the tears from my eyes.

"Oh shit! What do we do now?" Jounouchi said.

I had to think. Mokuba was just a boy. But he was a very smart boy, and he'd left me his locket. I opened it and looked at an almost unrecognizably smiling 10 year old Seto Kaiba. I shut it with a snap. Mokuba was counting on us to do something.

Honda came up to me and put his hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry. They'll be okay. They always come through."

"We've always been with them before," I answered.

"They'll know we're cheering them on, even if they can't see us."

"Damn. If this piece of junk worked, I could have gone with them," Jounouchi interrupted, glaring at the one remaining VR pod. He was still holding onto the briefcase as if he'd forgotten it was there.

Which he probably had.

At last I had an idea. If Mokuba had left this stuff with us, it had to contain a clue. I grabbed the briefcase from Jounouchi and heaved it onto a table. The guys crowded around as I opened the briefcase. I took the laptop out, set it on the table, flipped it open, and almost started laughing. An image of Mokuba waving to us from the desktop appeared. He must have added it when his brother wasn't looking. I jumped when I heard his voice coming from the computer's speakers.

"Hi guys! Just click on the icon at the bottom of the screen for Nisama's game codes. Good Luck!"

I followed his directions, then stared at the screen. I tried scrolling down. It didn't help.

"Oh, shit!" Jounouchi said.

We tried to make sense of the characters and symbols on the monitor.

...

 _function InventorySc_LoadSavedVars()_

 _\- Check version_

 _if InventorySc_Vars and InventorySc_ then_

 _InventorySc _Vars = nil_

 _elseif(InventorySc_Vars and InventorySc_[1] == "Pack") then_

 _InventorySc_Vars = nil_

 _end_

 _\- End check version_

 _..._

"What the fuck is this shit?" Jounouchi repeated as if that'd make the mess we were looking at easier to understand.

"It's a computer program, dumbass. Of course it'd be written in some computer language," Honda said.

"Oh yeah? If it's written in a computer language, how come I don't see any smiley faces?"

"I can see Mokuba gave this stuff to the right person," Honda said.

Jounouchi glared at Honda. "You think you're so smart – tell me what you think we should do next, asshole."

"Find someone who can read it," Honda said, grinning.

"Oh yeah, let's just walk up to our Technology teacher."

They started pushing each other as if that would help.

"Pegasus," I said suddenly.

"What?" They both broke off their fight to stare at me.

"Pegasus can read it," I reminded them.

"And we should trust him, because?" Jounouchi asked. "Are you crazy? He stole Jichan's soul to force Yugi to duel him!"

"And he tried to make up for it, didn't he? You know people change after they duel Yugi… and Yami," I insisted, hoping they didn't notice me blushing slightly at the mention of Yugi's partner.

"How do we even get Pegasus to see us? I mean I guess he'd see Kaiba or Yugi, but his security squad is going to stop us cold," Honda said.

"Not if we have this," I said, smiling as I held up Mokuba's locket, feeling like I'd solved a puzzle of my own. I wondered how much that devious little boy had planned out in advance. I stopped smiling, realizing just how much he trusted us.

"Anzu, you sure?" Jounouchi asked quietly… well, quietly for him.

I nodded.

"Okay, then," Jounouchi said.

Honda stole a look at the two men standing by the door.

"You think they're going to just let us waltz out of here and deliver Kaiba's top secret VR plans to Pegasus?" Honda whispered.

"I don't plan on risking it. It's two on two and they're just a couple of salarymen. We can take them," Jounouchi whispered back. (At least I guess they thought they were whispering.)

"Did you two forget they're standing right there probably listening to every word?" I hissed.

"No violence is necessary. Mokuba-sama gave the briefcase to you," Isono interrupted. "He told us to give you whatever assistance you required. It will be our honor to fulfill his wishes."

"You trying to tell me you don't have a problem with us taking your boss' computer plans to the guy who stuck his ass on a playing card?" Jounouchi asked.

"I think Mokuba trusted you to do what even Seto-sama could not – ask for help if needed, no matter how unlikely the source, and trust that it would be given," Isono said calmly, as if that settled the matter.

Which I guess it did.

* * *

 **Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter, and helping me get them all into Kaiba's virtual world without any missteps.**

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I wanted to insert something that would look like a game code into the story so people reading it would see what Anzu, Honda and Jounouchi were staring at in total incomprehension. The only problem is, I know very little about computers in general and nothing about programming. Anyway, I threw myself on Bnomiko's mercy and she found a sample of game code and we changed it around a little. I hope I didn't mess it up too badly.

I admit to having a sense of relief now that they're finally headed back to Kaiba's virtual reality world where they belong!

One thing I find interesting about the manga/anime is just how little contact Kaiba and Yugi actually have, especially before the AE arc in the anime. Because they encounter each other mostly at duels or in dangerous situations, the person Kaiba sees the most of is Yami, not Yugi. And that's not even counting the times, engraved on my prideshipping heart, like the helicopter ride to the pier, where Yami comes out/stays out apparently just so that he can shoot the breeze with Kaiba.

I also think in many ways, Yugi and Kaiba are the two characters least suited to understand each other, because of their temperaments and experiences. In contrast, despite – or because of – their ongoing rivalry, Kaiba and Yami seem to understand each other – possible because they both believe that dueling is a way to test and challenge private philosophies.

 _Comments would be adored..._


	9. Crossroads of Chaos

**MANGA NOTE:** Yami and Kaiba have two duels that either don't appear in the anime, or appear in a radically different form. Their first penalty game occurs when Kaiba steals Sugoroku's BEWD from Yugi. Yami challenges him to a shadow game (or penalty game) to get it back. Yami wins when Kaiba summons the BEWD, but the dragon destroys itself rather than follow his commands. Yami inflicts a penalty game on Kaiba where he is trapped in the illusion that he is in the Duel Monsters world and is killed by his own monsters.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 9: CROSSROADS OF CHAOS**

 _Heroes and villains exist without protective coloration. Standing at opposite ends of the spectrum, they share the trait of being instantly recognizable. It's comforting in a way, to have everything so neatly categorized, even – or especially – when the fate of the world is hanging by a thread._

 _And then there are those characters who exist to unsettle, who seem to change shape before our eyes, taking new form with less fanfare than the average Pokemon evolution. Often the changes are so inevitable they surprise no one but the participants themselves. Is there any doubt that Peter Parker, despite the occasional whine, will eventually accept that with great power comes great responsibility? Or that Han Solo will return in the Millennium Falcon, saving the galaxy and Luke Skywalker's butt?_

 _But "often" isn't the same thing as "always" – and sometimes you watch the mighty Blue Eyes White Dragon change into the cuddly Toon Dragon right before your eyes and wonder… are the fangs and claws just for show?_

 **KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

We were on a savannah this time, standing knee deep in grass and weeds. I looked at Yugi. For a moment I wondered if my vision had blurred. Then I realized there really were two of them here. Standing side by side, their differences were even more obvious. Yami was slightly thinner, slightly taller. Even more noticeable, he radiated confidence. That sense of power had always been there; it was more striking now, as if he'd been unleashed. Only the stunned looks on their faces were identical.

I waited for one of them to say, "I told you there were two of us," even though I'd already acknowledged it.

"Yami?" Yugi asked, uncertainly.

Yami nodded, then looked down at his hands as if he'd never seen them before. He made a fist, then flexed his hand; flicked his wrist as if drawing an imaginary duel monsters card. I noticed a second difference: Yugi still wore the Puzzle around his neck; Yami was carrying the backpack.

"How is this possible?" Yugi asked.

Yami walked up to me. He reached out so slowly, I didn't think to block him or push him away. He touched my face. He ran one finger down my cheek, down the side of my neck until it lodged at my collarbone. My pulse beat against his finger. He moved slowly, almost tentatively. Even for Yami, it was bizarre. I didn't like being touched, but this was different. There was no threat here… just an odd awareness of his finger against my skin. He finally noticed me glaring at him and stepped back.

"I can feel," he said wonderingly. He drew in a deep breath, held it for a moment. I heard the air whistle through his lips as he exhaled. "This isn't Yugi's body. This isn't an avatar. It's real. It's _mine_." He drew in another breath; his eyes drifted shut as if concentrating on filling his lungs was the only task before us. He opened his eyes as he exhaled once again. "Thank you, Kaiba."

"I guess this is yours then, too" Yugi said, slipping the Puzzle off his neck. He handed it to Yami – or tried to. But the minute the Puzzle left Yugi's hand, Yami disappeared. The Puzzle fell to the ground.

"What the fuck?" I muttered, stepping forward and picking it up.

As soon as the Puzzle was in my hand, Yami reappeared at my side, close enough that his voice sounded like it was inside my head, as he said, "This didn't happen the last time we were in this game. Something's changed."

He was so near. As with his finger against my skin earlier, I had this odd sense of awareness, this feeling of mingled danger and safety, of once sharp boundary lines blurring the closer I got to them. If I closed my eyes I could imagine his breath on my neck, his voice echoing in my ear even though he'd stopped speaking. I shook my head, unsure of what was happening, unsure if it was a threat… unsure if I liked it.

I frowned, annoyed I was wasting time on stray thoughts when there was a practical problem to be solved. Yami had been a few feet away when he'd blinked out. Why had he reappeared at my side instead of Yugi's? I looked at the trinket in my hand and shrugged. There was only one way to confirm the most obvious explanation. I took a step back and threw the Puzzle to Yugi.

"Here! Catch," I called.

The instant the Puzzle left my hand, Yami disappeared, reappearing once more by Yugi's side as he caught the thing.

"Even here, everything comes with strings attached," I observed.

"So…" Yugi said, trying to figure it out. "Yami's still tied to the Puzzle and he can only take solid shape if someone's holding it?"

"Seems that way," I replied. "We could toss him around a couple more times if you want to make sure."

Yugi's lips tightened. He stuck his chin out. As an attempt to intimidate me, it was laughable.

"Don't make fun of him," he ordered. "If the situation was reversed, do you think for a moment he'd taunt you?"

Damn. Yugi was right. I'd wanted to treat the Puzzle as if it was a worthless trinket. I'd wanted to prove the strange feeling of connection I'd felt the moment I'd picked it up was an illusion, to dismiss everything I'd thought and felt as if it was a triviality. I hadn't meant to do the same thing to Yami.

"I was wrong to belittle you," I said stiffly to Yami, ignoring his even smaller partner.

Yami nodded curtly, eyes cold.

"You went through as yourself the first time," I said thoughtfully. "I wonder if that made a difference."

"This body is mine, not Yugi's. I would have sworn it was real." He sounded upset… disappointed even. For an instant he looked like a little kid who'd just had a toy snatched out of his hand. Then Yami remembered our latest quarrel and glared at me. I couldn't believe I'd forgotten, even for a moment, what a stiff-necked bastard he could be.

"You _are_ real. Never doubt it. I wish your body matched," I said.

He smiled slightly, accepting what we both knew was a peace offering. The three of us looked at each other uncertainly.

"So now that we're all here, what happens next? Where do we go? What should we do first?" Yugi asked.

"I'm going to try to open the program. Maybe I can shut down the game from the inside now that we're here," I said, knowing it was a fool's hope, but not wanting to admit I had no clue what our next move should be once I'd confirmed that the codes were inaccessible.

But before I could do anything, a small figure dropped into our midst, materializing as suddenly as Yami had winked in and out. I can't believe it took me a moment to recognize my own brother – or maybe that was how bad I didn't want him to be here.

Mokuba grinned in satisfaction as he surveyed the landscape.

"Hi, Nisama," he said, a touch of bravado in his voice.

"What the fuck are you doing here? Get back home right now!" I yelled over the rising wind. It must have been my imagination, but I could have sworn I heard mocking laughter.

"I can't. The VR pods vanished. The only way out is through the game. We're going to play it together after all," he said smugly.

"You're going home." I didn't want to look weak in front of Yami, but I added, "Please."

Mokuba was starting to look stubborn. I didn't care.

"Exit game!" I called out. There was no response.

"Unhide codes," I yelled next. The program was still unresponsive. I swore under my breath.

"It looks like you're stuck with me," Mokuba said happily.

"Don't you get it, Mokuba? Remember what happened the last time you insisted on being part of one of my games? I don't want you to get hurt!"

"C'mon Nisama! I want to help… and I'm going to."

"The hell you are! I wish you were anywhere but right here next to me!"

"Kaiba, control yourself!" Yami said sharply.

As soon as I said the words I wanted to take them back. I wanted to unthink the thoughts that'd spawned them. But it was too late. I heard a rumble deep in the ground.

A fissure opened right in front of me, knocking me to the ground. By the time I got to my feet, the gap was too far to jump and it was widening with each second. I recognized the stone plateaus rising as I watched, trying to keep my balance as the ground I was standing on soared into the air. The game was recreating the spell card "Canyon." Its card effects wouldn't apply here. That didn't matter. Its physical presence was what counted. Yami, Yugi and I were on one stony outcropping. Mokuba was on the other.

As I stared across at him, measuring the distance, a Dragon Capture Jar appeared, hanging improbably in the sky. I cursed in frustration. Now I couldn't even call in my Blue Eyes White Dragon to rescue Mokuba. I could only use the seven cards I'd identified before coming into the game. I couldn't switch – not until this challenge played itself out. I'd seen Yugi's seven choices before we'd started. He didn't have anything big enough to rescue Mokuba either. I wasn't sure what was in Yami's allotment of cards. The game would have picked seven at random from the ones he used most commonly – and there wasn't a flier, besides Curse of Dragon, in the bunch. And if Mokuba could have extricated himself, he would have done so already. That left it up to me.

I got ready to jump across. I knew I probably wasn't going to make it. I didn't care. I'd rather plunge into the stony abyss trying to reach him than leave him alone to face whatever was out there. This was my fault. The one thought that had pounded through my head like a drumbeat was how much I wanted him gone. I hadn't controlled myself. Now it was time to pay. I had to let Mokuba know his safety mattered more than anything.

"Nisama!" he yelled.

"Just hang on Mokuba, I'll be there in a second," I yelled.

"No! Nisama, it's too far to jump!"

"Then I'll die trying. You're my partner. You're all that matters. This was my fault. I should never have said – have thought – I didn't want you here. I was afraid of this happening – and I was the one to set it off."

I took a step back to try and get whatever running start I could on the uneven ground. Yami and Yugi grabbed me. I tried to throw them off. I didn't have time for them; I had to reach Mokuba.

"Damn you, let me go!" I screamed.

"You'll kill yourself, you fool!" Yami yelled.

I managed to throw Yugi off. "Do you think I care?"

"I know you don't. That's why we're not letting go," Yami answered.

"Nisama, please stop! I'll be fine," Mokuba screamed. Hearing his voice made me struggle even harder.

Yugi latched on to my arm again. I stared at his Puzzle – it was my last chance. If I could get it off, then I'd only have one of them to subdue, and we all knew how a fight between me and Yugi would end. I grabbed the chain around his neck, half strangling him while I tried to rip it off.

"Wait!" Yugi said. "I have an idea. Just trust me for a minute."

I let up for a fraction of a second; just long enough for them to consolidate their grips. As I was cursing myself for a fool for hesitating, Yugi summoned Eagle Eye. The sun shone through his tail feathers just like I'd designed it to; a golden battle helm was on his head. At least his presence meant no more trap cards could be activated, but it wouldn't get rid of the Dragon Capture Jar. My Blue Eyes White Dragon was still as helpless and bound as I.

"What good does this do? There's no way Eagle Eye can carry Mokuba!" I yelled at Yugi, trying for the chain around his neck again.

"It doesn't have to." Yugi took one hand off my arm to pull the Puzzle out of reach. He looked at Yami. "It's the only way. We can't leave Mokuba alone out there."

Yami nodded.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" I growled.

Yugi took off his Puzzle. Yami disappeared. Before I could shake Yugi off, Eagle Eye grabbed the Puzzle in his talons and bolted off across the abyss. He dropped the Puzzle at Mokuba's feet and disappeared.

"Mokuba! Pick up the Puzzle!" Yugi yelled.

"Got it!" Mokuba yelled back. He put it around his neck and yelped, "Oh shit, Yami?" as my rival appeared at his side.

As if part of the game had been satisfied by Yugi's action, the chasm turned to a river. It was sweeping Yami and Mokuba away; their plateau had turned into a stony raft, buoyed by the currents.

"I'll protect him, Kaiba," Yami called out.

I wanted to jump in the river, although the swirling waters and sharp rocks made it clear that would be just as suicidal. I wanted to do it anyway – anything would be better than watching Mokuba disappear on the horizon.

But I couldn't leave Yugi alone – not after what he'd done. He'd given up his partner to protect mine.

"I'll do the same," I yelled. "Don't worry, Mokuba. We'll catch up with you. I promise." I paused. I wasn't used to saying this stuff aloud, but he had to hear it. "I trust you. We're a team. Always. Just be safe until we can get to you."

"I can take care of myself," Yugi said quietly at my side, as the river carried them out of sight. "But I know it made Yami feel better."

I turned to face Yugi. On the rare occasions when I've been truly grateful, I've never found the words to express it. "Thank you," I said awkwardly.

"It's okay. I'm sure you would have done…" his voice trailed off. I wouldn't have done the same thing and we both knew it.

I looked around. The river had disappeared. Yugi and I were back in the same savannah that had been there when we'd arrived. Absent-mindedly I reached into my pocket. I pulled out my GPS tracker and stared at it a moment, then breathed a sigh of relief as I saw a little red dot moving away from me. Movement meant life.

I was so busy figuring out the logistics of how to reach Mokuba as quickly as possible, that it took me a moment to wonder what my GPS tracker was doing in my pocket at all – instead of being back in the computer lab with my body. Then I remembered Mokuba's hair. It had looked the same as always. But I'd been sitting next to him in my office, watching as he'd coded a red stripe onto his avatar's hair to match the ones on his sneakers. A red stripe that was now missing. I frowned, trying to figure it out. The red stripe should have been in his hair in this virtual world. My GPS tracker shouldn't be here at all. And Mokuba had said that the VR pods had disappeared.

"What's wrong?" Yugi asked.

I didn't bother answering. I had a more important question of my own.

"Yugi… is there anything in your pockets?" I asked.

Yugi put his hands in his pants pocket and shrugged. "My keys, some money… you know… stuff. Why?"

"Because you're supposed to be a virtual reality avatar, remember? You shouldn't have anything in your pockets that I didn't put there."

"But I'm still wearing my school jacket."

"Of course you are. I made an avatar of you in it. As I seem to have to keep repeating to you two, it's not like you ever wear anything else. But if I'd made an avatar of you wearing a pink tutu, that's how you should have appeared. And I certainly didn't waste time and storage space putting your house keys in your pocket."

I held up my GPS tracker. "I put a GPS tag on Mokuba. This was in my pocket back in the real world – so that if anyone tried anything while we were here I could find him fast when I woke up. I didn't bother putting it in my avatar's pocket – so it shouldn't be here. But it is." I put my hands in my coat pocket and frowned. "I designed the jacket pockets as a handy way to store items we'd need all the time – like a compass or weapons. It didn't matter if they could physically fit or not."

I swung my hand. My katana appeared in it. "That part still works."

"So, somehow, we really are here? Like, us… not just our avatars?" he asked. With his impossibly big eyes, Yugi's face looked like it was made to be confused.

"That's my working theory," I said.

"But… that would mean we're really in a virtual world!" Yugi said.

I nodded. "And it looks like all the normal rules of the game apply. We still can use the cards the way it I intended us to, we can call up weapons or the map."

"How did this happen? What does it mean?" he asked.

I shrugged. I wasn't going to admit I had no idea what was going on in my own virtual world or how it worked now. I thought of Yami's backpack and wondered just how solid the objects inside it were.

"It means," I said, "that if your other half wasn't a fucking amnesiac he might have a better idea how this happened than we do."

Yugi smiled up at me. He might have been trying for a smirk, but his face was too friendly for him to pull it off.

"What gives?" I asked.

"It's the first time you've ever admitted that Yami's search for his memories might have a point," he said with a grin I could only describe as impish. I didn't know what to say, so I glared at him. He frowned. "I just thought of something… if your adoptive father and some Shadow Realm bad guys are in here calling the shots, why didn't the game just send a bunch of duel monsters to wipe us out?"

It was a good point.

"I guess, even now, the game has to operate within the parameters I set. We should be able to use that, because there's no way those bastards are beating me at my own game," I declared. It was time to issue a challenge of my own.

Yugi laughed. He had to reach up to do it, but he punched me on the shoulder. I'd seen his friends do that to each other. I'd never been sure why.

I shook my head. "At least the GPS tracker works. It shouldn't take us long to find Mokuba."

All I wanted to do was get started. But just when I wanted to deal with him the least, the Wicked Worm Beast appeared. He ignored Yugi, just like he'd ignored Yami when we'd been in the game the last time. As I'd expected from the moment of his arrival, he charged straight at me, tentacles stretched out to immobilize.

"This won't take long," I told Yugi as I called in my weapons. I started slicing tentacles, hours of practice at dismembering him making each stroke quicker and surer than the first time I'd faced him.

The Wicked Worm Beast was annoying. He was stupidly, stubbornly persistent, but never skillful enough to be a threat. I'd tried to either upgrade his capabilities or delete him altogether, but nothing had worked. He just kept coming back, as maddeningly ineffectual each time. I couldn't even blame him on Gozaburo or his allies. This wasn't part of their little additions. The Wicked Worm Beast had been like that from the beginning.

"What was that?" Yugi asked, when I'd finished hacking the monster to bits. He stared open-mouthed at the bloody carcass, or what was left of it, looking even less like Yami than usual.

"The Wicked Worm Beast," I answered.

"I know that. I meant, why him?"

I stared at Yugi. "You really don't remember?"

"Why would I remember? Oh… was he in one of your penalty games with Yami?" Yugi asked quietly.

"The first one," I answered.

He looked uncomfortable. He was probably remembering that had been the game that had set me off. Building Death-T had been the inevitable result.

"Why did you act like you expected him?" Yugi asked in a subdued voice.

I was surprised but pleased that Yami had kept the details of our first penalty game private. I'd taken the Blue Eyes White Dragon card like a sneak thief; I'd hated having to steal it back as if it wasn't mine. And then in the duel that had followed, my dragon had abandoned me, as if I wasn't his. I was glad Yami hadn't told anyone, even Yugi, that my own dragon had rejected me.

Yami and I had been enemies then, pure and simple. He'd had no reason to keep my secrets. It was a victor's right to inflict as much pain as he could.

I'd seen enough of the Wicked Worm Beast in that penalty game and in the nightmares that had followed each night without needing to run into him here. He'd been the one to deliver the final blow. I remembered the feel of him strangling me, cutting off my air supply, as I underwent the promised experience of death. I remembered hearing Yami, his voice muffled as if coming from a distance, making another promise – that this was an illusion; that painful as it was, it would make me a better duelist. At the time I'd thought it was merely mockery, the final coup d'grace. Now I wondered: Had Yami been offering hope – comfort, even – instead? I'd thought I'd understood what had happened that day. Now I wondered how much I'd missed.

Yugi's question was far easier to answer than my own.

"The Wicked Worm Beast keeps coming back," I told him.

"Why?"

I hated to admit it. "I don't know. There's a glitch in the program I can't seem to fix."

"I thought everything here means something, right? That's what Yami said. So, what does this mean?"

"It means there's a faulty algorithm somewhere that I have to find and fix," I said. I pulled out the GPS tracker and added, "Well, since the show's over lets try to close the gap between us and our prey."

* * *

 **JOUNOUCHI'S NARRATIVE**

Since I wasn't crazy about the idea to begin with, it figured we got in to see Pegasus without a hitch. Anzu had been right: Mokuba's locket was as good as an invitation. Either that or they let us in because we were accompanied by one of Kaiba's goons and lugging around his briefcase. Isono had tagged along, but he'd gone back to keeping his mouth shut. That was fine with me. I just wished Pegasus had taken a vow of silence too.

Meeting with Pegasus was about as annoying as I'd expected it to be. The guy gave me the creeps, and knowing there was a hole where his eye should have been bothered me, even though his hair was covering that side of the face. Maybe that was part of it… I kept wanting to push that weird silver hair back and take a good look. Then he'd start talking and all I could think about was punching him in the good one. Yugi had disappeared into some psycho video game of Kaiba's. Pegasus thought that was a real hoot.

"Let me see if I understand the situation," he said when we'd finally finished explaining. "Your friends vanished into a virtual world, bodies and all, and your response to this unexpected turn of events was to bring the plans Kaiba considered too secret for his server, even when stored behind his formidable firewalls, to _me?_ "

That's when he started laughing.

"Maybe this wasn't such a hot idea," I muttered to Anzu.

"And you expect me to help because you've confused me with someone altruistic? How delightfully misguided," he said when he'd finally stopped laughing. "Or are you children naïve enough to think I feel an obligation to my business partner or a debt from the past just because I trapped his soul in a Shadow Realm prison? We dueled. He knew the stakes."

"What about the owner of this locket?" Anzu asked, holding it up.

"Yeah," I said. It was hard working up any enthusiasm for saving Kaiba's ass, but Yugi and Mokuba were in trouble too. "You trapped a kid in some crazy Shadow Realm jail. Now he needs your help to spring him from a virtual reality one. Seems fair to me. And you owe Yugi big time. You know you do. It's time to pay up."

I wasn't going to bother appealing to Pegasus's sense of decency. We all knew he didn't have one.

"And you truly believe even Kaiba-boy could design a virtual world that all encompassing?" he asked, as if the only thing that mattered was the quality of the product.

"Him and the other Yugi – and don't pretend you don't know all about him – seem to think so. It's some fucked up blend of a virtual world with all that funky shadow magic shit mixed in," I said.

"Eloquently put," Pegasus murmured. "A virtual world that can fool even such experienced players… that can beguile the senses until it becomes their reality… that has become three-dimensional enough to require their bodies as well as their minds… a virtual world that can kill. That certainly doesn't sound like a safe place for a child. It doesn't sound like a safe place at all…"

"Does that mean you'll help?" Anzu asked.

"Do we want him to?" I muttered.

"I think, my little apricot-girl, that it does," Pegasus answered.

"Why?" I asked. I didn't like his sudden turnaround. I didn't like his smiling face or that creepy drawl. "It's not like you've ever been Mr. Charity before. If you're doing this, it's for your own sick reasons. Don't think I don't know that."

"Such a perceptive lad. Does it really matter, little duelist? If you had a choice, you wouldn't be here."

"Yeah, it matters. I don't want you fucking things up worse than they are already."

"Such faith in me… it's charming. And if I promise to see your deceptively cherubic friend and the underage child safely home?

"You didn't mention Kaiba," Anzu said slowly.

"Yeah," I chimed in. "I know why I hate the bastard, but I thought you two were partners. What gives?

"Hate Kaiba-boy?" Pegasus laughed. "How imperceptive. I don't hate Kaiba-boy in the slightest. It's just that jealousy is such a corrosive emotion."

"Oh man, just how much money do you need anyway?" Honda groaned.

"Of course I don't begrudge him his money or even his creative genius. I have plenty of both those commodities."

"So what's the deal then? It's not like he's got any friends or even much family," Honda said.

"Precisely. I don't envy his losses, but what he's managed to hold on to."

"Mokuba?" Anzu asked.

Even when he was sighing, Pegasus still managed to sound smug.

"You've come close. But nuances are important my foolish little apricot-girl. Not Mokuba. Love."

* * *

 _  
**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter. I've run out of ways to say how much I appreciate it!**   
_

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I have to admit, writing Pegasus is a guilty pleasure.

At Duelists' Kingdom there's something irresistible about the combination of his sounding like the jolly, over-caffeinated host of a children's show while calmly (and without any sense he realizes there's anything wrong with his actions) plotting to stick people's souls on playing cards for all eternity.

I find his affectations and over the top mannerisms incredibly annoying and hilarious at the same time, and I tried to match his voice. One of my favorite Pegasus affectations was the way he persists in calling Kaiba, "Kaiba-boy" probably because of the way the VA on the subtitled anime drawls out the "o" in "boy," and partly because it's hard to think of anything Pegasus could call Kaiba that he'd find more annoying. As Anzu's name means "apricot" I liked the idea of "little apricot girl" as a nickname.

I once read an interview with Mr. Takahashi where the interviewer pointed out that from Mokuba's point of view, Kaiba was the hero. He replied that he tried to write his villains (and when we first meet Kaiba, he definitively qualifies as a villain) so that from their own point of view they _were_ the heroes. This is probably what I like best about the Yu-Gi-Oh! villains – there's a real feeling that they've been pushed beyond their breaking points and I like how you get a sense of how the world looks from their own, at times twisted, vantage points. And I love how, even with the characters who change from villain to rival and ally, as with Kaiba, you often still have the sense that the story looks very differently when seen through their eyes. This is the first time I'm writing Pegasus as a character, as opposed to only seeing him in flashbacks, so I'm excited about being able to explore things from his point of view.

 **Penalty Game Note** : I always found the penalty leveled against Kaiba in their first penalty game an example of irony at its worst. After the penalty game, Kaiba repeatedly re-experiences getting killed by duel monsters when he sleeps. We later find out from Mokuba that Gozaburo used deliberate sleep depravation against Seto. To me, there's something sad about the idea that after Gozaburo's suicide, the penalty game continues to deprive Kaiba of a chance to sleep.

 _Comments would be adored…_


	10. Invasion of Chaos

**CHAPTER 10: INVASION OF CHAOS**

 _Could anyone have longed for adventure more fervently than Luke Skywalker? And yet when it was offered to him on a silver platter – or at least by a durasteel plated droid – his first thought was of the chores he'd left undone and the uncle waiting impatiently for him back home._

 _Perhaps though, unadventurous as it sounds, looking before leaping isn't bad advice, even for fictional characters. As so many of them discover, looking after you leap just doesn't have the same effect._

 _And even the most pure-heartedly enthusiastic of heroes can find that what started as a simple mission to save the world has somehow, inexplicably, morphed into a more personal quest as well._

 **YUGI'S NARRATIVE**

One minute Kaiba was standing next to me, the next he was gone. It wasn't like there'd been a flash of light; I hadn't even blinked. I flailed out as if I was blind. I wasn't though. I could see everything but Kaiba.

"Kaiba!" I yelled.

There was no answer. I was alone.

I remembered Yami saying that the game changed settings and devised challenges based on our thoughts, moods… and fears. I knew what mine were, even before I saw the Multiply Slime.

He was bigger than I thought, or maybe it was that the landscape had changed to match him. I was standing on a flat stone now, barely big enough for my feet. The grass and weeds had suddenly dissolved into mud. It was so easy to imagine falling… being sucked under. Multiply Slime seemed to be a part of the muck. It made him bigger and more threatening.

There was just one Multiply Slime now, but that wouldn't last. There'd be more. Just like doubts and insecurities they'd come in a horde. Immediately, as if in agreement, three more of the monsters appeared. They crept along, blending into the ooze. They moved so slowly I had plenty of time to think.

Multiply Slime wouldn't even need any weapons, not that I'd ever learned how to defend myself anyway. All they'd have to do was swarm over me, burying me alive as I lay trapped beneath their mass, suffocating and helpless as they pressed me into the mud. I swallowed, watching them come closer, as if I was already short of air, too lightheaded to think clearly.

I was alone just like before… this weakling that everyone picked on, who couldn't do anything but bawl his eyes out every time someone said something mean or pushed him around. I wasn't surprised Kaiba had vanished. He had no place in this battle. I bet he'd never cried in his life – and he'd had a lot more to cry about. I was the one whose eyes leaked like a faucet, no matter how hard I tried to be a man. Yami had been telling me for years now that I was the strongest person he knew. Anzu kept telling me I'd changed, that I'd grown up. Right now, I wasn't sure I believed either of them, or if I ever had.

I could see flashes like a lightning storm in the distance. With each one, a Multiply Slime disappeared and three Slime Monster Tokens appeared in its place, as if they were regenerating and multiplying just like they were programmed to do when under attack. The Slime Monster Tokens were white as ghosts, but you could see they were solid. Mud spilled out of their open mouths and leaked out of the corners of their eyes. They were even yuckier than the Multiply Slime they replaced – and that took some doing. I tried to marshal my thoughts, but their slow approach was hypnotizing.

I heard an echo of Jounouchi's voice, as if he was in the hallway outside our classroom, talking to Honda.

"Yugi's such a sissy. I knew it wouldn't take much to get him to cry. Let's have some fun with the wimp."

I gasped. It was like someone had just thrown a glass of ice water in my face, startling me awake. Jounouchi _had_ said that once. But he'd changed. _I'd_ changed. I just had to remember that.

The Slime Monster Tokens were still moving slowly. But they kept coming. I took a deep breath, grateful to feel my lungs fill with air. I'd often wondered how I'd do without Yami… who I'd be if he left me on my own again. I tried to match Yami's confident posture. I was going to make Yami proud, show him that I'd taken all his lessons to heart. I was small, but I was going to stand up for myself and my friends. I thought about the cards I'd selected back in Kaiba's computer room for the first challenge. I summoned Giant Trap Hole to swallow the monsters up.

Nothing happened, except that the Slime Monster Tokens slithered even closer, their ghostly forms trailing mud. I could almost taste the muck, feel it slip behind my mouth, as I tried to gasp for air. I swallowed again, relieved to taste only saliva in my throat.

I wasn't going to panic. This was my game. It was time to play. My trap card didn't work. That probably meant that even though I couldn't see him, Jinzo was here somewhere, and I didn't have a monster powerful enough to destroy him.

I did have one thing though – a partner. Kaiba was here somewhere. If I could rip away Jinzo's invisibility, Kaiba would take him out, even if he had to cut him to pieces with that katana of his. The Slime Monster Tokens were almost on me, I imagined them creeping up my legs.

But thinking of Kaiba reminded me I had an inventory too. I didn't have a katana; I wouldn't know how to use one. I'd never gone in for fighting games, and even in role playing ones, I'd been a healer when given the choice. I grinned. I might not be able to kill them, but I had plenty of stuff in my inventory that could put those Slime Monster Tokens to sleep. I called up poppy syrup and a spray gun and canister along with a gas mask to protect myself. The poppies reminded me of watching "The Wizard of Oz" with Ji-chan. I could almost hear him telling me that the flying monkeys couldn't hurt me. I hoped the same was true for slime monsters. I pulled the trigger on the spray gun. Instantly, the Slime Monster Tokens dropped to the ground. A moment later they started snoring. I had until they woke up to figure out a way out of this mess.

Jinzo had to be out there somewhere, probably hidden by a Spell Card, since his presence meant Trap Cards wouldn't work. I thought about the lightning flashes, about how a Multiply Slime had disappeared and been replaced by three Slime Monster Tokens with each one. Defender Jam could do that, but only if it was being attacked. Kaiba was probably out there firing blindly at an enemy he couldn't see. I was just glad he'd stopped before he'd created an army.

Our hidden fears are the scariest. Facing them makes us stronger. If I could bring Jinzo into the light, we'd win. Briefly I thought about the new card Yami had told me about, Light of Truth, Light of Hope. That's what we needed now. But it hadn't been released yet, much less uploaded here. Well, if courage wasn't going to come shining down from the sky, I'd have to work with what I had right here… and quickly. The Slime Monster Tokens were starting to stir.

As they got up though, they started heading in the opposite direction, as if being pulled by a magnet. I summoned Respect Play. It meant revealing my cards. It probably meant revealing how scared I was, how unsure that I'd measure up. But the game knew that already, since it had tried to trap me with my own doubts. And Respect Play meant I'd get to see what I was facing.

Instantly Jinzo was revealed. Kaiba's Blue Eyes White Dragon reared up behind him. I could see Kaiba caught in a tangle of thorns. It looked like the Spell Card, Curse of Thorns, except unlike the helpless victim on the card, Kaiba had an axe in his hand. Predictably he ignored the thorns pulling at him as he called on his dragon to attack. Maybe he was right, because destroying Jinzo made it easy for Kaiba to call in a trap card to free himself. The Blue Eyes White Dragon turned his attention on the Slime Monster Tokens next. They were easy to take out, and without a Multiply Slime backing them up, they couldn't return. I should have seen that myself, except I'd been distracted by my own doubts. That had been my real enemy, not these pathetic slime monsters that were dissolving back into the ground. They'd been as weak as my fears.

I stared at them in shock. Was it possible that despite Gozaburo and whatever other bad guys were in here, the game itself wasn't my enemy, either? Jinzo hadn't had any doubts or uncertainties – but that was because he was soulless, inhuman. Maybe there are worse things to be than unsure.

The ground was solidifying once again, turning into a field, complete with wildflowers and trees. It smelled like spring. Kaiba walked up to me as if he'd never disappeared, as if I hadn't just fought a battle all on my own… except now that I thought of it, I hadn't been alone. Kaiba had been there the whole time, and it had felt like Yami and even Anzu and Jounouchi had been with me, helping me when I needed them the most. I stared at my hand as if I could still see my share of the circle Anzu had drawn there in magic marker way back when we'd all first become friends.

Kaiba's arms and face were scratched; his sleeve was ripped. I told him everything that had gone on while we'd been separated then asked, "What happened to you?"

He looked at me a moment, clearly weighing something in his mind before saying, "You're right. It makes sense to pool our information."

I hadn't thought of it like that, but before I could figure out what to say he added, "You disappeared. There was a thicket of thorns right where you'd been, as if it was mocking my promise to keep you safe. I didn't even bother with my duel monsters at first; I just called in an axe and started hacking. But they grew faster than I could cut them down, and the more I fought the more they closed in on me, surrounding me just like in Curse of Thorns."

I nodded.

"I tried Solemn Judgment, to get rid of them," he continued. "Since my Trap Card didn't work, I figured that meant, even if he was invisible, Jinzo was there. So I called up my Blue Eyes White Dragon and started blasting. Nothing happened." He looked at the slimy mess at our feet. "That's when I started to wonder if it made sense, taking shots at an opponent I couldn't even see." He frowned. "I've done that often enough in my life. I figured with this, I could at least face my enemies. I didn't expect it to work." He slipped the Ring of Magnetism off his hand; it had served its purpose, redirecting the Slime Monster Tokens from me to him.

"I felt the same way. Weird, huh?" I said, realizing that we'd just saved each other's lives. "We were working together, even though we didn't know it. It took both our cards to defeat Jinzo."

I thought for a moment. Kaiba probably wouldn't understand, but I needed to say this to somebody, and he was the only one here. "Yami was right. I'm not a duelist just because of him. I'm not any of the mean things people called me. I'm not a coward, and as for being a crybaby – well, I can cry and duel at the same time. I understand this game better now. I didn't beat my enemies; I beat myself and my own fears."

I'd been so scared since we arrived. Now I knew we'd be fine, that we... no, that _I_ could handle anything this game threw at me. I laughed, just because I was that relieved. Kaiba stared at me. I think he was trying to figure out whether or not I'd snapped, but he didn't say anything.

"It really is an amazing game, Kaiba," I added.

Kaiba kept staring. "That came through?" he asked. "That part of it… forcing myself to trust, to believe that things would work out, even if it went against the grain, went against everything I'd been taught… that felt like my game, like nothing had changed. But…" He paused, then said, "Did you hear voices in the wind saying stuff while we were separated?"

I nodded. "I heard Jounouchi and Honda talking about me… you know the way they did before we were friends."

He snorted. "You might as well listen to a couple of dogs barking or monkeys screeching as those two."

I opened my mouth to defend them, then realized… for once Kaiba's insults hadn't been delivered on auto-pilot.

"Why would you pay attention to idiots like them, anyway?" he went on irritably.

"They're not idiots," I said.

"They are if they think you're not a duelist."

I wondered if in his own way, Kaiba was annoyed on my behalf. It was a startling idea.

"Besides, people change," I said. "Wasn't that the point of this whole game?"

"Assuming I wasn't on a fool's quest from the beginning," he said bitterly.

"You weren't," I insisted.

"Is this game about change, or does it define change's limits?" he demanded.

I had no idea what he was talking about, not that Kaiba was waiting for an answer anyway… not from me, at least. He turned away, scanned the horizon again and frowned. "I'm not sure how long we have before another attack starts."

"Is there a limit on how much free time we have before the next challenge?" I asked.

"There was. I removed it. But I'm not sure what's been altered. I still have to find a way to access the coding," he explained.

That sounded so unlike Kaiba I couldn't help asking, "You removed the time limit? You wanted _fewer_ attacks? Why?"

Kaiba's frown deepened to a scowl. "I decided the game would work better that way." He paused again. I remembered him saying over and over that revealing yourself was a weakness. There was something he didn't want to tell me, but clearly holding out on me didn't sit well either. I waited. I knew Kaiba well enough to know what his decision would be. It was sometimes difficult to recognize, but by his own lights, Kaiba always played fair.

"I took out the time limit because sometimes stuff would happen and I wanted to think about it… figure out what it meant. I couldn't do that if monsters kept attacking."

"Like us now," I pointed out.

He glanced at me, then nodded. It was only as we started walking again that I realized Kaiba hadn't told me what his voices had been saying.

* * *

 **KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

We started heading after Mokuba again, but I stopped short. I've never believed in hunches – not unless they were backed up by cold, hard facts. But instincts are a slightly different matter, and mine were screaming that I was about to walk away from something big, something that could help us survive.

I hadn't tried accessing the program since we'd arrived. The last thing I wanted was another reminder that I couldn't control anything – my own temper most of all. After Death-T, I'd sworn to myself I'd never get mad at Mokuba again. Since then, every time I'd felt the first spark of anger kindling, it had been drowned in a wave of shame before it could ignite.

Until today.

I had to find a way to regain control… of my game… of myself. I looked at Yugi and remembered Yami telling me that anger and impatience were my enemies. I'd created this game to find a way to beat them, but nothing had gone according to plan. It was as if I was still in that damn thicket of thorns; I could feel them tearing at me the harder I struggled to fight my way clear. For once I wished the Wicked Worm Beast would show up just so I'd have something to kill, but like everything else here, he went by his schedule, not mine.

There had to be a way out. I hadn't expected Ring of Magnetism to work, but it had. I hadn't expected Yugi to be there helping, but he was. There was a pattern here. Maybe it was time to push the edge of the envelope a little further.

"Unhide Codes!" I shouted. It was a long shot and I knew it. There was no reason to think this time would be different than any of the other times I'd tried, but the lines of coding showed up in all their glory. I could get a good look at just how much damage had been done.

"Undo all edits made less than 240 hours ago," I ordered, but I wasn't surprised when nothing happened. I tried a dozen variations then settled down to study the program. As I'd expected the safety system had been trashed and I couldn't restore it. The game was set on lethal levels. I couldn't change that either. All the alterations were set in stone – even the ones that weren't actual hieroglyphs. Seeing them got me pissed off all over again, as if I wasn't at the boiling point already.

"Damn. What's the point of showing me the program if I can't change anything? They're just trying to fuck with my head and it's not going to work!" I yelled.

I was about to hide the lines of code again so I wouldn't have to see them mocking me. It was just like Gozaburo to rub it in that whatever I did, he was always going to be in my way, stopping me whenever I tried to move on with my life. But Yugi distracted me.

"I don't think that's why it's here. You asked to see your program, remember?" he said.

"We won a challenge," I said thoughtfully.

"Yeah. And it's your game. I can't believe winning doesn't count for something."

I wondered just what I'd won. What I wanted more than anything, except Mokuba's safety, was a way to take my game back.

I stared at the codes surrounding me. I couldn't undo any of Gozaburo's changes. That was hardly news. Gozaburo had said as much when he'd been in my mind; he hadn't been able to resist rubbing it in. " _You keep trying to erase the anger, bitterness, and hatred I've branded into your heart – but you can't, and you never will."_

The need to prove I was different from him had been the thing to push me into asking Yami and Yugi for help. Gozaburo would never have done it, would never have put his soul into someone else's hands. Bitter as it was, I could. And yet Gozaburo had been right as well. Every time I thought of that moment, I cringed. I wanted to destroy something to take away the shame of branding myself the weaker man.

I swallowed and looked at my program, frowning. Maybe the answer was in the coding right in front of my face. I couldn't delete Gozaburo's changes to my game, any more than I'd ever been able to erase his influence on my life as if he'd never existed – but that didn't mean I'd been defeated. It never had and it never would. I couldn't undo Gozaburo's revised coding, but maybe I could work my way around it, incorporate it into a new design that would take me where I wanted to go. It was the one thing I'd never tried.

And it would be a victory worth fighting for.

I tried to think of what to add, what would help us, and more importantly Mokuba, survive until we could win.

I remembered my latest encounter with Gozaburo, how he'd waited, gloatingly, for me to fall asleep. It'd been the first time I'd finally outlasted him – or lasted long enough for Yami to arrive. Until that moment, sleep had been the one game I'd always lost.

Not completely, of course. By the end of my five year association with Gozaburo, I'd learned to doze in five minute increments, to sleep so lightly that the sound of footsteps in the hall outside my room would snap me awake instantly. But it had taken years to develop the knack, and right from that first night at the mansion, Mokuba had come to visit when he figured everyone else would be snoring away. It didn't take him too many days to notice how tired I was. He offered to be my lookout. I'd agreed. I don't know why I did anything so stupid, except that sleep deprivation affects judgment. Eventually we'd gotten caught. Big surprise. Gozaburo could move quietly for such a big man.

Luckily Gozaburo ignored Mokuba as always. The old bastard had simply forced me to continue studying while he held my head up with his riding crop, the whip end under my jawline like a promise, and waited for the sag of my head to betray the fact I'd nodded off. All I could do was hope Mokuba would stay quiet and try to outlast the son of a bitch. It hadn't worked, of course. Gozaburo had stacked the cards in his favor; I hadn't been able to come up with an answering move.

I remembered Mokuba's face as he'd watched Gozaburo bring down the riding crop across my back. I've never felt more defenseless before or since, watching my own helplessness reflected back at me from Mokuba's eyes.

It had taken me years, but here in a virtual world, long after the old bastard's death and attempted resurrection, I'd finally figured out a counter strategy. The game could recognize brain waves. I couldn't change what was written, but I could add the commands that would make sure the game couldn't start a challenge while we were sleeping. I smiled in satisfaction as the additional lines of code appeared before my eyes, then were slotted into place, confirmed and saved. But as I reviewed the revised section I realized that it didn't go far enough.

I thought of those weapons I'd designed. It hadn't been merely a lack of sleep; it had been that kind of bone weariness that left everything in a haze. Being afraid to sleep was a weakness in and of itself. I could fix that too. The game could also recognize body language. I added commands so it couldn't launch an attack while we were lying down, making that moment when your mind starts to drift off a little less vulnerable.

Gozaburo had never laid a hand on Mokuba, but I hadn't been able to keep him safe either, not really. He'd seen too much. He'd been my accomplice too often. Here, at least, I wanted Mokuba to know I could protect him.

"Changes completed," the computer voice said as the codes vanished.

"What did you just do? What was all that stuff?" Yugi asked.

"I finally got a good look at my program," I said. I remembered something I probably hadn't paid enough attention to when the codes had been visible. "It looked like a few more lines of hieroglyphics had been added. One of them said: 'All that happens here becomes real.' What the fuck does that mean?"

Yugi shook his head. "It doesn't sound good. Could you fix anything?"

I nodded. "We can't delete anything that's already been written, but if we win a challenge we get to make adaptations. When I attacked the program directly it stopped me cold, but I figured out how to work around that." I outlined the changes I'd made.

"That's great, Kaiba!" Yugi said, flashing me a thumbs up sign. "I just wish Yami and Mokuba knew what you've done."

I thought again of Mokuba's face in that moment before Gozaburo's blow had landed. The worst part was: he hadn't been shocked; he'd known what was coming.

I swallowed, wishing Yugi wasn't here; needing to answer him anyway.

"Mokuba will know," I said as I pulled out my GPS tracker to confirm our direction.

It was time to get moving again. But first I called in my katana. This time the Wicked Worm Beast didn't keep me waiting in vain. Abruptly I switched my katana for the shorter wakizashi. I wanted to get my hands dirty. Even with the shorter blade, it didn't take long to dismember him.

Yugi stared at the hacked up remains – or maybe he was looking at my bloodstained clothes. Just like in a video game, the stains would fade. My sleeve had mended itself already. Yugi wasn't as startled this time. Instead he looked thoughtful. "I never asked Yami what happened all those times I blacked out. I didn't understand why you and Mokuba acted like we were enemies."

But Yugi hadn't been my enemy. My grudge had been with Yami. He'd reached into my dreams so easily; I'd relived our first penalty game every night, felt myself torn limb from limb by my own duel monsters. I could take that. What had been worse, the thing that had goaded me to try and get revenge any way I could, was that I'd been powerless to stop him.

I hadn't had that particular nightmare since Death-T, as if one penalty game had driven the other out.

"I guess you think that was kind of cowardly of me? Not asking Yami, I mean," Yugi said.

Now that I thought about it, I guess it was. But Yugi had saved Mokuba more than once. As far as I was concerned that put his actions beyond my disapproval.

I shrugged. "I never had the luxury of ignorance," I said. Then something occurred to me. "Was that why you jumped in at Duelist Kingdom when I challenged you to that duel in front of Pegasus' door? I was trying to get Yami pissed enough to give me a match. I know why he said yes. What about you?"

"I just knew something was different. Even though you didn't mention Mokuba, I could tell – something had changed. That it wasn't about winning or revenge or titles. It was about something real."

"How'd you know that?" I said, frustrated all over again. It was bad enough that nothing in this game made sense, without having Yugi as a companion, without owing a debt to someone this incomprehensible. I stepped closer, towering over Yugi, waiting to see if he'd back down and admit he'd made it up. "You saw me try to kill your grandfather at Death-T. I almost killed Mokuba – or were you too out of it to notice?"

Yugi shrugged. He looked helpless when he did that. It annoyed me, reminded me that he wasn't the one I was used to dealing with. If Yami was here, we'd probably be in a fight already. But somehow, when I cooled off, I'd see things a little clearer. Conversation has its own thrusts and parries. It's a duel too, in a way. A battle doesn't just prove who's the stronger man, it can also show who has the more powerful vision, the truer path.

"No. I knew," Yugi said. "But Yami saw something in you worth saving, even then."

Yami kept insisting we were friends. I even agreed. But knowing he'd made that decision at Death-T… He'd been inside of me. What had he seen? Somehow it felt like no matter how far we'd moved since then, we kept coming back to it.

"You didn't know anything about Yami," I reminded Yugi. "So why listen to his opinion? Not only did you accept the match at Duelist Kingdom, you threw the duel."

"Because I knew Yami was right about you. And I knew it would be wrong to let you die, even if it looked like it was what you wanted. And I sure as hell didn't want this spirit that lived inside me to be the one pushing you off that tower. There are just times when you have to trust yourself, your sense of right and wrong. I guess there are times you just have to trust your heart."

I snorted and waved a hand at the empty landscape around us. "Yeah, we can all see what a winner of an idea trusting your impulses can be. Mine led us right here."

Yugi shook his head. He did it so deferentially it took me a moment to realize he was disagreeing.

"I can see where this game's been twisted, when it feels like someone's watching and laughing at us, just like in that virtual world Noa lived in. It's tried to kill us even. But a lot of it… I don't know… feels like you when you're dueling," he said.

I'd been so angry that Gozaburo was in here somewhere where I couldn't get at him, that whoever was after Yami had invaded my game, violated it, that I hadn't taken the time to stop and think. But Yugi was right. Somehow, underneath everything, a lot of it still felt like the game I'd designed.

"Maybe your impulses were on target after all," Yugi said. "Maybe what you need to do isn't fight them, but follow them. What did you have to do to win this game, anyway?"

If I'd had the answer to that one, I wouldn't have needed to create the game in the first place. But I tried to shove as much confidence as ever into my voice as I said, "I don't know."

* * *

 _  
**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter through all its revisions.**   
_

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Bnomiko reminded me that Yugi plays a role playing game against (Spirit of the Ring) Bakura in the early manga - but neither of us could remember if he'd been a Healer or not. Actually, being a Healer wasn't one of the options. For reasons I can't even begin to guess at, he picked being a Beast-Tamer instead, although I was pleased to see he didn't have any weapons, making him a very humane Beast-Tamer. The best part of rereading it (besides finding that you could choose to be a Hobbit - something I wish Yugi picked instead of Half-Elf) was that when you picked your attributes, Jounouchi basically bypassed intelligence!

I found writing Kaiba to be a bit of a balancing act this chapter. I think he does know he can trust Yugi, but I also think that the act of trusting anyone but Mokuba makes him uncomfortable. And he decided at age 8 that the way to be happy was to never reveal anything of yourself, and now he's in a position where everything is working against that. So I thought he'd be caught between conflicting influences.

Now that they're back in the virtual world and the story line is a bit more established, I'd really like to know what people think.

 _Comments would be adored…_


	11. Pharaonic Guardian

**MANGA NOTE:** The relationship between _both_ Kaiba brothers and Yami in the early manga is nothing short of disastrous. Initially, Kaiba steals Sugoroku's BEWD from Yugi. Yami challenges him to a shadow game (or penalty game) to get it back. Yami wins when Kaiba summons the BEWD, but the dragon destroys itself rather than follow his commands. Yami inflicts a penalty game on Kaiba where he is trapped in the illusion that he is in the Duel Monsters world and is killed by his own monsters.

Mokuba, eager to prove himself to his brother and desperate to protect him from Yami, challenges Yugi to his favorite game, Capmon. He threatens Yugi until Yami appears. Although Mokuba cheats, Yami (surprise!) wins. As part of the resulting penalty game Mokuba believes he's being sealed into a Capmon capsule. Being as stubborn and implacable as his older brother, Mokuba plays a sort of poison roulette with Yami and Jounouchi, and cheats yet again. Yami wins (do we see a patter developing here?) and Mokuba ends up taking poison.

When Kaiba creates Death-T, Mokuba insists on being one of Yami's challengers. Kaiba misreads this as a personal attack on him, and when Mokuba loses he forces him to go through the Death Simulation chamber he had designed for Yami. Yami rescues Mokuba, and defeats Kaiba by summoning Exodia. He shatters Kaiba's heart, giving Kaiba the opportunity to rebuild it without the darkness that was destroying him.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 11: PHARAONIC GUARDIAN**

" _Sweet dreams are made of these._

 _Who am I to disagree?_

 _Travel the world and the seven seas_

 _Everybody's looking for something…"_

 _I admit it's a kick imagining Carl Jung and singer Marilyn Manson (in full stage make-up, of course) kicking back over a couple of beers while talking about the role of the quest in narrative fiction._

 _Because everybody really is looking for something. Sir Galahad is searching for the Holy Grail; Sauron is chasing after a misplaced ring. And even on Sesame Street, Ernie would be lost without his rubber duckie. Perhaps the "Wizard of Oz" quartet are ahead of the curve on this one. At least they know what they're searching for: the one thing that will make them whole. _

**YAMI'S NARRATIVE**

I tried to assess our location. Mokuba and I were alone. The river had carried our stone raft far away from Yugi and Kaiba. It had finally thrown us on the bank and disappeared, leaving behind only a dry riverbed bordered by reeds.

I'd never been apart from Yugi. The separation was a physical ache, a bitter reminder that I didn't have a body to ache with. Regardless of what this world might try to trick me into believing, these phantom pains were as illusory as my physical form. And yet… every fiber of my being screamed that I was real. When we'd arrived here, I'd felt so solid. Kaiba and Yugi's belief had lent weight to my certainty. Then Yugi had tried to hand me the Puzzle and I'd disappeared. Now I felt more like a ghost than ever and the proof of my insubstantiality was hanging around a twelve year old's neck.

I looked at Mokuba and felt another pang; his safety was my responsibility. I'd always known Mokuba was young; now I felt it. In a way it was ironic; he'd been almost two years younger at our first duel. He'd been a child, desperately trying to protect his brother. But he'd also been a threat; he'd deliberately pressed a stun gun against Yugi's side. It was an act that could not go unanswered. In the penalty game that had followed I'd stood over him like an avenging angel, then deliberately turned my back and left him to his punishment.

I'd had no doubts then. Mokuba had transgressed; he'd tried to hurt Yugi. He had paid. I'd simply been the instrument of that reckoning. But would my response still be as unyielding, as untouched by any softer qualities today?

I'd learned since then to temper my judgments with mercy. But had I truly become compassionate or had I merely borrowed the gift of charity from Yugi? Without him would it be tossed aside like a book thrown in a closet – never returned but never read, until it was gradually buried beyond recall?

I had to find my memories. I had to know who I was. Otherwise my core was just as wraithlike as this shell.

Mokuba hadn't moved since we'd landed on this riverbed. He was biting his lip, trying not to cry.

"It'll be alright, Mokuba. I promise," I said.

"I don't want your promises! I want Nisama! I want…" He was sobbing too loudly now to continue, gulping air with each breath until I was afraid he'd choke on his own tears. I hugged him, realizing as I did so how unused I was to touch… and how immediate everything felt.

Mokuba was smaller than I was and warm. I regretted not hugging Yugi when we had first arrived. Would he have felt like this? I remembered running my finger along Kaiba's cheek, down the column of his neck, the pad of my finger rough against the silken surface of his skin. The sensation had been too intense to exist only in imagination. My body had been real enough for Kaiba to feel it too, to respond… for his heartbeat to quicken, to pulse in the artery at his neck.

I raised my chin. Yugi and Kaiba were strong duelists. I would protect Mokuba. We would be reunited. And when we were, as Kaiba had once said, I'd hold on to the things crucial to me, now that I had hands to do so. If they were solid enough to protect Mokuba, to hug Yugi, to touch Kaiba again, that was all that mattered.

"This is all my fault," Mokuba muttered, his words muffled against my shirt.

"No. The blame rightfully belongs to those who willfully twisted Kaiba's game to suit their purposes. And we will prevail against them. I promise."

"Nisama was mad at me," Mokuba said. It sounded like he was choking back tears again.

"He was frightened for your safety."

"He told me not to come. I disobeyed him. I let him down."

"Could you have stayed quietly at home, knowing he was in danger?"

Mokuba shook his head against my chest, his head still kept determinedly lowered. He was crying again. I could feel his tears start to seep through the material of my shirt.

"Then don't blame yourself for an act of love. Trust me. We'll find your brother and Yugi. We'll do it together."

Mokuba got control of his sobs and nodded. He took a step backwards, looking awkward.

"Are you ready to start?" I asked.

He nodded again.

"Good. Because I'm relying on you."

"I've never been here before," he protested. "You're the one Nisama took into this game, not me."

"You know your brother. You know how his mind works."

"So do you," he said.

I stared at him.

"Nisama always said that the key to victory is knowing how your opponent's mind works. You beat him so you must know him," he said.

Mokuba was right in a way. When I'd first emerged from the Puzzle, the closest thing I'd had to an identity was being Yugi's protector and Kaiba had tried to harm him. He'd challenged my authority; he'd dared to throw the mercy I'd offered at our first penalty game back in my face. At Death-T, I'd intended to make Kaiba pay. I'd planned to smash his soul into dust, to leave each piece irretrievably small and have the empty shell of his body stand as a warning.

And then at the height of my power and wrath, I'd stepped into his soul room and seen a child. He was surrounded by the darkness at its center. There'd been no surprise in the boy's eyes as he'd stared into mine, and no fear. Only a kind of weary expectation. It was a look far too jaded and hopeless for a ten-year-old's face.

I hadn't wanted to be the latest in what I was suddenly sure was a long line of people who had turned the child standing in front of me waiting resignedly for death into the teenager who'd tried to kill us all. Even as a ten-year-old, Kaiba hadn't begged. I realized that unlike all the others in all the penalties I'd imposed, the word "mercy" had never crossed his lips.

"Go ahead. I know what's coming next," he'd said to me. "I lost. And losing equals death. That's what _he_ said. I guess it's true."

"No," I whispered. "Sometimes it equals a chance at life."

I did what I'd come to: I'd shattered Kaiba's soul. I'd left his body an empty shell. But I'd made sure the pieces were luminescent enough to be seen in the darkness, large enough to be reassembled by a ten-year-old's nimble fingers. I'd come to mete out judgment. I'd learned things were rarely that simple.

I jumped as I heard a fanfare of horns, breaking into my thoughts. A voice called, "Let the time of Judgment begin!"

As the words rang out the landscape suddenly changed. The dry riverbed disappeared and was replaced by an ancient audience chamber. It was full of people. They were in robes and tunics instead of the jeans I'd grown used to seeing. I was sitting on a throne. My sandaled feet tapped on the limestone floor. Strangely, Sugoroku seemed to be at my side, dressed in robes like the rest, his unruly hair half hidden by a headdress. There were five men and a woman in front of me. I recognized Isis. Her necklace was glowing on her throat. I would have said I recognized Kaiba as well, but I took a closer look at his bronzed skin, noticed the Millennium Rod in his hand. It was the High Priest from the stone tablet Isis had shown me in the Domino Museum, now brought to life.

I didn't see Mokuba. He had vanished into the crowd. Was this a challenge? If so, where were my opponents? I saw only my councilors and my servants. They were familiar to me from the brief visions I'd had, from the carvings Isis had shown me.

The guards shoved a prisoner forwards, singling him out from the crowd of condemned men. His hands were bound behind him. He struggled futilely, but despite his powerful frame, the guards forced him to his knees. The High Priest read out the death sentence in Kaiba's flat, uncompromising voice. The six members of my council held out their Millennium Items as they chanted. Lightning struck the prisoner. Electricity seemed to rebound from him to the Items they held. The prisoner sank to the floor. I could see him. His face was empty: his body a lifeless husk. Bearers came and removed his corpse as the High Priest called for the next prisoner.

It was Mokuba.

He was pitifully smaller than the guards who were pushing him forward. I stared at him, aghast. It was my fault Mokuba was in danger. I'd been thinking about judgment and how helpless I'd been to stem my own rigidity in meting out punishment. The game had responded. It could set seven opponents against me; it had chosen six of them from my former councilors.

"Stop! Kaiba! It's your brother," I yelled as the High Priest began to read the sentence. He continued as if I hadn't spoken. "I order you to stop!" I said.

I ran in front of them, but it was as if I'd turned into an invisible spirit again. No one heard me.

Mokuba didn't waste time pleading with the man who looked so much like his brother.

"You're _not_ my Nisama," he said. Mokuba looked past the assembled group to stare straight into my eyes, the only one in the immense room to truly see me. He frowned. For the first time in this bizarre scene, he looked troubled.

"Is this a penalty game… like when we met? Did you do this?" he asked me.

"I may have set it off, but I didn't mean to hurt you. I swear it. This challenge is aimed at me. I don't know how you got mixed up in it."

"I do," he answered. "It's my contest as well. I've been waiting to pay for Death-T… waiting for someone to notice I wasn't just one of its victims; I was the contract manager overseeing its construction." He paused, looking for once much younger than his years. "But, you forgave me, didn't you?" he asked, anxiously, shrinking into his captors' hold, as if they were the safer choice.

My former council banded together as if we hadn't spoken. Once again they called forth that unearthly light. If I let them hurt Mokuba, if I was that powerless to save an innocent child, then I deserved to disappear into the twilight that seemed to surround us. But the growing darkness reminded me: I'd fought the shadows that had surrounded Kaiba. I could imagine his mocking laughter if I now conceded so easily to my own. I still had my cards. I was still the King of Games. I set Block Attack, and my knight took the full weight of their blow on his chest. He fell to the ground in Mokuba's place.

"Yes," I assured Mokuba. "Of course I forgive you."

My council continued to ignore my existence. I had Mirror Force among my remaining six cards. I could turn their next attack back on them. I didn't want to kill the men and woman who stood before me, who were blindly upholding what they believed was my will. But I couldn't reach them. They were so deep in the past, they were blind to what was happening here and now, right in front of them.

Mokuba turned to face my councilors. "I never paid for my role at Death-T – just Nisama. Maybe I should have. But none of you were there. You don't have the right to judge me, much less kill me." He looked at me and grinned. "And it'll take more than this crew to bring a Kaiba down."

Mokuba might never have played this game before, but his cocky grin reminded me of his brother. I smiled in response and let him set his cards. This was his fight as well as mine. As I watched, he called up the Time Wizard. A gust accompanied the clock-faced duel monster's entrance. It swept through the stone room, rotating faster and faster, turning into a tornado, sweeping us all into its funnel. Then the winds disappeared, taking the room of judgment, the not-quite familiar characters with them. Mokuba and I were alone. We were back in the present, once again standing by the dry riverbed in Kaiba's virtual world… if we had ever left it.

"I'm proud of you. You didn't hesitate, even when you saw your brother," I said.

"That wasn't my brother," Mokuba said quickly. "It just looked like him, that's all. Besides…you were right. No matter how mad he was at me for disobeying him, he's on my side. He always will be and I'm never doubting him again."

"What made you play Time Wizard?" I asked.

Mokuba shrugged. "I'm always the youngest. And… my brother's right – sometimes you just have to leave things in the past and move on."

I'd felt invisible; I'd doubted my own existence. And yet, in my moment of weakness, Mokuba had heard me. I'd helped him find the courage to save not just himself, but me as well. I'd needed to see my existence reflected back to me in a child's eyes before I'd been ready to believe in it again. Kaiba had designed this game to challenge whoever played it. That aspect still held true.

The game had set a path at my feet, as clear as the dry riverbed that would lead us back to the others. The first time I'd entered this game I'd been searching for my memories. Unexpectedly, I'd stumbled across another, equally crucial quest: to rediscover a sense of self, a belief in my own solidity, that the game had seemed to grant only to snatch away again.

Behind me I heard applause. I turned quickly. For a second I wondered how Ryou Bakura had found us, then I shook my head. I should have known better. The white hair, brown eyes and slender form were the same, but this man was even leaner… and his eyes were far harder than Ryou Bakura's would ever be. A scar ran down one cheek.

"Who are you? Why are you here?" I asked.

"Where else should I be but at a scene of judgment? I'm as tied into the Millennium Items as you. Where else would I be when they are put into play?"

"You're mistaken. I haven't used them."

"The game has tapped into their power. The rest is gloriously inevitable." He paused. "You really don't know who I am?" he asked.

"Are you from my past? From 3,000 years ago? Ryou Bakura thought so."

"I should have killed him before I left," he mused. "There wasn't time."

"Why?" I asked, startled.

"Because he saw too much. But he's not important anymore. So you truly remember nothing… but you have the Items. I can feel them. They were made to store things… maybe they hold your memories as well, pharaoh," he said, his tone turning the title I didn't remember into an insult.

"Why would you want to help me?" I asked.

"He's not," Mokuba cut in. "He must want you to remember for his own reasons, not yours. But a better question is, why aren't you attacking? What's holding you back?"

He grinned. "Clever child. Yes. I could kill you now, but I won't. The game will do that for me once it's done toying with you. I want to watch you suffer. I've waited 3,000 years. I've sold my soul for this. My retribution will be perfect."

"Retribution? For what?" I asked.

"You will remember," he hissed. It was a threat. "I've watched you; I've choked on your speeches. You like to play the hero, don't you; to pretend you're not the kind of person who burns children in their homes? But the flames of Kul Elna are real. Before you'll die in them, you'll know why."

"I've never been afraid of the truth." I said.

"You will be," he promised.

"If you're not going to attack, you might as well give up on the head-games. They're boring," Mokuba said.

"I have no problem leaving… seeking out better – or at any rate, taller prey," he said with a smirk.

I glared at him. Mokuba broke in.

"No!" he yelled.

"Mokuba, quiet," I warned.

"Didn't you hear him? He's going after Nisama! Don't you care?"

Bakura's laugh interrupted him. "Yes, my boastful brat… I can see just how ineffective my mind-games are."

Mokuba managed to hold it together until Bakura disappeared as abruptly as he'd arrived.

"I've got to find Nisama!" he yelled when we were alone again.

"We will. We can follow the riverbed back the way we came. It'll be all right," I said.

Mokuba nodded and strode off down the path made by the vanished river. He looked at me as I caught up with him.

"You're different here," he said. The sharpness of his glance reminded me again of his brother.

I didn't pretend ignorance; I didn't claim I'd always had sympathy for him. I had, but I'd never felt it this intensely before, never been so demonstrative.

"I feel the same way I always have. I just feel freer to express it… ever since…" My eye fell on the Puzzle around his neck. "Maybe it's because you're wearing the Puzzle."

"And it makes you want to promise me everything will be all right?" He laughed, shakily. "My brother feels the same way. Only he doesn't need a Puzzle."

"I'm not a slave of the Puzzle," I said sharply. "If we were together with no Puzzle between us, I would still be drawn to protect you, on your merits alone. And were Yugi in front of me now, I would still feel the need, the hunger, to guard him, even if you were still wearing it. Maybe the ties of friendship are magical bindings in and of themselves."

"So we're friends?" he asked. His tone was even more unreadable than his brother's, as if he was unsure whether he wanted to express sarcasm or relief.

"For my part, yes," I answered.

Mokuba nodded, then said, "So you're really this pharaoh with a court and everything – and you don't remember any of it? That is just so weird."

"Sometimes when I've stood surrounded by artifacts from my distant past – or when I've dueled your brother – I've had glimpses of the man I was. But that's all they are, images of another person living in another time, without a picture to frame them. I don't remember anything before Domino, before Yugi."

Mokuba whistled softly. "Freaky! I saw that in a movie once. What if you get all your old memories back and forget all of us?"

"I hope not," I said, startled. "That would merely be exchanging one incompleteness for another."

* * *

 **ANZU'S NARRATIVE**

We'd left the briefcase with Pegasus. We went back the next morning. A Kaiba Corporation limousine had picked us all up. Isono had been in it. He'd accompanied – or followed – us into the Industrial Illusions building.

I'd tossed and turned all night, hoping I'd done the right thing, insisting that we give Kaiba's top secret program to the guy who'd kidnapped Mokuba. And seeing Pegasus wasn't exactly reassuring. He was chuckling when we came in, laughing at something only he could see while he fiddled with the ruffled cuffs peeking out from the sleeves of his ever-present red suit.

I knew Pegasus was mourning his dead wife. We'd been told that. I'd seen her picture. She was beautiful and you could tell just from looking at the portrait he'd painted how much Pegasus had loved her. But Pegasus didn't act like any grieving widower I'd ever seen or heard of. Going insane because your lover died sounds romantic, tragic even, but Pegasus wasn't like that. He was just weird.

The first thing he said when we were ushered into his office was, "Ah, my babysitters have returned."

He laughed at Jounouchi's open mouthed stare. "Well, you're here to check up on me, aren't you?"

"Have you figured anything out?" I asked.

"I found a GPS tracker in the briefcase. Ingenious. It would seem Kaiba-boy was worried about kidnappers, since he expected to be unconscious."

"So you found a GPS tracker. Big deal. What's it supposed to track, anyway?" Jounouchi asked.

"At a guess… Mokuba. My business partner is even more paranoid than I gave him credit for. It might help me understand the coding on his game."

For the first time since I'd met him, I felt a flash of sympathy for Kaiba. The last time he'd been in a coma had been his own damn fault – but I'd never once thought about how he must have felt when he'd woken up to find Mokuba gone.

"Shit," Jounouchi said. "Paranoid as the bastard is, he left Mokuba with us. He actually trusted us to watch out for his baby brother."

I nodded glumly. "And the first thing we did was let Mokuba hoodwink us and run off on his own."

"I hope the kid's okay," Honda added.

"So that was the lever that got you to come here to your old enemy. I'll leave you to decide if concern or guilt was foremost in your minds," Pegasus murmured.

"We need your assistance in another area as well," Isono surprised me by saying. "We don't know how long they'll be gone and need to maintain the illusion that everything is as usual." He held out a folder. "Mokuba-sama planned it out before he left."

I stared at Isono. It was the most I've ever heard him say. He didn't notice me. He was gazing at Mokuba's instructions. I recognized the look on his face. It was the one my parents wore after each dance recital. He finally caught me staring and flushed as though he'd being caught doing something impertinent by taking a parental pride in his boss' little brother. Then I remembered that Isono had just referred to him as Mokuba- _sama_.

Pegasus wasn't paying attention. I guess to him, Isono was just the object holding Mokuba's instructions. Pegasus took the folder, opened it, and read the neatly typed pages.

"Mokuba always did take Kaiba Corporation's welfare to heart, didn't he?" he drawled when he finished.

"Considering you kidnapped the child, don't insult him by mocking his devotion," Isono said.

"And you stood by and watched while your boss built a theme park of death. None of our hands are clean here. Except perhaps, for our little apricot-girl."

"Stop calling me that!" I said.

"Why? It reminds me of spring. And like that deludedly hopeful season, you are a resilient child. Your first love is just as dead as mine, little apricot-girl. But you won't crumble, won't go mad under the weight of your loss. You'll move on to another love – more mundane perhaps, but also more enduring. You have no taste for re-enacting Romeo and Juliet, unless it's a ballet. I wonder – do I envy or pity you?"

"You seem to think you know all about me."

"Don't I?"

Pegasus threw a folder at me. I was almost too surprised to catch it. I opened it to see my own face staring back at me, over and over. Sometimes I was with Yugi and the gang, sometimes I was in dance class, sometimes, most disturbingly of all, I was by myself at home. There were notes written in the margins and on the backs of the photographs: my horoscope, my blood type analysis, my grades, a list of my dance recitals, the part-time jobs my school knew nothing about…

"That's really creepy," I said, shutting the folder, trying to speak calmly.

"You interest me, apricot-girl. And I don't have anything left but my curiosity."

I vaguely wondered why I was more freaked out than angry. Maybe it was that Yugi and Mokuba were out there somewhere in this video nightmare and I still believed that Pegasus could help. Kaiba would have taunted me that everything had its price. I didn't believe that; I'd argued with him every time he'd said it. But here I was, more bewildered than angry, and more scared for Yugi and Mokuba than anything else.

"What's so interesting about me?" I asked, trying to make sense of the folder on my lap – and of the man who'd collected it.

"Don't worry. I'm harmless. You're exactly the wrong age – too old to be a daughter, too young to be a flame… and I've only burned for one woman."

"You didn't answer my question," I said.

"You seem so sensible on the surface. But you had a choice, little apricot-girl. You could have walked away from all this Millennium Item insanity. Instead, you chose to stay."

"You had a choice too."

He laughed, but unlike his usual giggle, this sounded sad.

"Did I? It doesn't seem that way."

"Hey! What's going on here? Is he bothering you, Anzu?" Jounouchi shouted.

I sighed. Pegasus was confusing enough. Adding the boys to the mix would only make things worse.

"It's nothing," I said firmly.

"You sure?" Honda asked.

I nodded.

Jounouchi bit his lip, undecided whether to press for a better answer. I was relieved when Pegasus helped out for once by changing the subject.

"There's one thing I've wondered. Why did you come to me? Was it only guilt at losing your mischievous young charge?"

"Believe me, I've been asking myself the same question," Jounouchi muttered.

Pegasus ignored him and looked at me.

"No. I thought… maybe you'd want a chance… you know…" I mumbled, unsure how to continue.

"To atone? You _are_ a perceptive child. You came here today looking for a reason to trust me, didn't you? Here it is: I'd like to make amends to the people I've wronged in her name before I am reunited with my beloved wife. It's the second most important thing in my life."

* * *

 _  
**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter and much Mokuba help.**   
_

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** "Sweet Dreams are Made of This" was written and sung by the Eurythmics. Marilyn Manson later did a cover version. I just found the image of Marilyn Manson and Carl Jung hanging out discussing literary theory funnier, so decided to go with the cover – as opposed to the original – artists.

 **Timeline Note:** The story is set after Battle City/Alcatraz, but goes off in its own direction _before_ the DOMA arc. I picked Post-Alcatraz as the starting point because that stuck me as more of a pivotal point for a lot of the characters, leaving room to take things in a new direction.

For example, at this point, we haven't seen Pegasus since Duelist Kingdom. So at this point, we really don't know his reaction to those events. Similarly, after Alcatraz, Kaiba is determined to find his true future and to rid himself of his anger, hatred and bitterness – but he has no clue if that's even possible or how to go about it. Yami wants to find his memories, but we don't know what he'll do with that knowledge if he ever gets it – and isn't sure he's going to like what he finds, or if he even wants it. Anyway, I wanted the story to start at a point where things were much more open so I could take them in new directions.

 **Pegasus Note:** And speaking of Pegasus… I find him such an interesting mix. It's like the sides of his personality just seem so different: there's the could-be hero in a tragic love story, the playful guy who I imagine watching cartoons in bunny slippers, and the villain who can, without a shred of remorse, trap a child and a helpless old man's souls if it will further his ends. Despite his silly demeanor a lot of his actions are pretty creepy.

He's a bit of a stalker in this in this story, but if you look at how much he knows about Yugi and Kaiba in Duelist Kingdom, it doesn't seem beyond the bounds of possibility that he collects information (to put it politely) on people who interest him or who he feels can serve his ends.

 _Comments would be adored…_


	12. Machine Revolt

**CHAPTER 12: MACHINE REVOLT**

 _There are some video games where trust has a value and a level, where Pokemon evolve faster, learn moves more quickly, based on how strong the ties that bind them to their trainers grow, games where you can measure a Hunter pet's loyalty and happiness in increased damage points._

 _Needless to say, none of these games were designed by Kaiba, for whom trust was an untested weapon… potentially powerful and possibly defective, as likely to blow up in your face as ensure your victory._

 _But there are times when a game can exceed even the grasp of its designer._

 **MOKUBA'S NARRATIVE**

It was evening. I was lying on the ground. Yami was leaning against a tree. To anyone else it probably looked like Yami was just sitting and thinking. But I knew better. I'm Seto Kaiba's kid brother, after all. Yami was brooding.

"I came here with your brother to find my past," Yami said.

I nodded. It still hurt that Nisama had taken Yami into his game before me. Maybe it would always hurt a little.

"Perhaps Bakura is right. Perhaps the greatest nightmare is the truth," he added softly.

Yami was wrong; the worst nightmares are the ones we keep repeating to ourselves. And whether they're true or not doesn't matter.

Yami had come through for us over and over. Every time I'd asked, he'd been there. But it was only now… seeing him staring miserably at nothing in particular that I'd realized: I'd never really, truly forgiven Yami for putting Nisama in that coma, for giving my brother those nightmares, for being the final thing that drove him crazy.

And now, I could fix it so that whatever happened, Yami would come out of this game hating himself, doubting his every move, blaming himself even when things went right. I jumped up and looked around, scared my mean thoughts would set off some horrible challenge, but I didn't see any monsters. I let out a sigh of relief and lay down again.

Because, there was more to Yami than what he'd done to Nisama and me – just like there was more to my brother. The whole time my brother had been building a theme park of death, he'd also been planning out a Kaiba Land for kids. He'd been dismantling our adoptive father's weapons empire. Yami hadn't known any of that, but he'd believed in my brother all the same; somehow he'd known that the Nisama he'd met wasn't the only one. I drew in my breath. I'd made a decision. Yami might have put my brother in a coma, but he'd also acted like Death-T was a mistake anyone could make.

"Why are you listening to Bakura? He's crazy," I told Yami. "I saw your face when that challenge started… before you even said or did anything. That had to have been part of Bakura's memories, since you don't have any. You weren't gloating. You didn't look like you'd just won a duel. You hated what was going to happen. I remember when Nisama was taking over Kaiba Corporation. He told me he did some stuff he wasn't proud of; he did it to give us a better life; he did it to keep our adoptive father from killing people. And the way you looked this afternoon… that's exactly the way Nisama looked back then."

"Thank you," Yami said. He drew in a breath then let the air whoosh out.

I grinned. I felt like I'd won another challenge, like I'd saved us all over again.

"No problem. Remember what you said to me… that even my brother couldn't do everything all on his own."

"He wasn't going to be alone," Yami said sharply. "I would have protected him."

That wasn't my point, but it was nice to hear.

"Why?" I asked. I believed Yami, but I'd never really gotten why he was always so eager to help and… I missed Nisama; I wanted to hear Yami talk about him.

"Your brother is searching for a truer path. That alone would make helping him my responsibility. But in truth, it is a pleasure, not a chore. I like him."

Lots of people respected my brother. Even more were afraid of him. I'd never heard anyone say that they _liked_ him before. Nisama had drummed it into my head that no matter what anyone said to me, showing any reaction was a bad thing. But I couldn't help it. My mouth dropped open.

Yami looked amused. One eyebrow lifted slightly. "Is that so surprising?"

"Uh… well… yeah… kind of…" I mumbled.

I expected Yami to laugh, but that brooding look was back. "Given our first meetings, I suppose…" he started to say.

I interrupted him real quick. I don't know if he was about to say he was sorry, but he reminded me so much of my brother right now that I didn't want to hear him apologize, especially when I hadn't either.

"Today… it was good to hear that you forgave me for Death-T," I said. "I never thought about it before, but it bothered me the way you guys always acted like there was nothing to forgive, at least when it came to me. I helped Nisama… and it was like none of you saw it."

"You were a child."

"I was eleven. That's one year older than Nisama was back when he took on Gozaburo."

Yami's lips twisted downwards. "I don't remember my childhood. Maybe that's why it seems like it should be a special time."

"Neither does my brother."

I did, but for the first time I wondered if leading a pack of taser wielding fifth-graders counted.

"And yet," Yami said in a thoughtful voice, "when I stood at the heart of your brother's soul, I saw a child."

I had to grin at the notion that someone was talking about my brother like he was a little kid. It just went to show that as powerful as Yami was, there was a lot he didn't know… and he'd obviously gotten some pretty weird ideas in his head. My grin got even wider picturing what would have happened if Nisama had been here, not me, listening to Yami.

"What's funny?" Yami asked.

"If Nisama heard you call him a child, the game wouldn't have to bother coming up with a near death situation," I said.

Yami looked startled for a moment, then laughed. "It wasn't an insult. We were all children once, whether we remember it or not. But I see your point."

As we smiled at each other I realized: we had a secret. I'd always thought of secrets as being dark, dangerous, unfriendly things, but this was fun. All of a sudden I felt relaxed… tired even. The stiffness went out of Yami's shoulders.

"I think it's safe to sleep," I said.

Yami stared at me. "Why?" he asked.

I tried to figure out how to put it into words. I trusted Yami, but even so, I needed a minute before I could get it out. I always did when it came to telling anyone anything about me and Nisama, not that I had a lot of practice.

"You're right. I do know Nisama. And my brother knows sleep is dangerous. Hell, our adoptive father never let him get any," I blurted out. "His tutors would hit him if he nodded off, even for a minute. Then they graduated to using a switch. Finally, Gozaburo took over and just stood behind him with a riding crop. The first thing Nisama would have done was make sure the game couldn't hurt us while we were asleep." I looked Yami right in the eye. "And I'd bet anything he's figured out a way by now."

Yami nodded. "I agree. But the game itself isn't the only danger. We should watch in turns in case Bakura – or even Gozaburo – decides to participate a little more directly in our demise."

I stuck out my chin and stood as tall as I could. This was no time to look like a kid, not when I was the one who'd saved us today. I wasn't giving that back.

"I'll take the first watch," I said.

For the first time, I really believed he'd been a pharaoh, because he gave me the kind of look a commanding officer gives a young soldier. Assessing, but full of confidence. I'd said I didn't want to be treated like a kid, but this was different.

"Of course. I will sleep soundly with you standing guard," he replied as he lay down. "Yugi hates it too, when people assume that because he's small he must also be helpless."

Yami was as good as his word. Within moments he was asleep. I sat down with my back against a tree. I blinked when Noa appeared in front of me. For a moment, I was afraid I'd fallen asleep when I was supposed to be on guard. But Noa wasn't a nightmare – not to me.

"Noa?" I asked, staring at the light blue hair, staring at the dark blue eyes, staring at the brother I'd barely gotten to know, the brother I'd never expected to see again.

Being Gozaburo's unnoticed youngest adopted son had brought me a shitload of unwanted baggage – most of which I would have cheerfully tossed off the nearest cliff. But it had also brought me Noa. And now Nisama's game had given him back to me.

Noa nodded shyly as I yelled his name again. He ducked his head. I ran to hug him, but his form wavered. I almost tripped as my hands closed in on empty air.

"I'm sorry," he said. "My code's too badly degraded. This is the best I can do. I wish I could hug you back."

"How did you get here? Did Nisama bring you?"

Had Nisama made an avatar of our brother? I had to admit it seemed unlikely. Noa had helped us escape from his virtual world, giving up on whatever chance he had of coming back to life to do it. I wasn't sure if that outweighed his having kidnapped us in the first place with my brother, like it did with me. We'd never talked about it.

"Not intentionally," Noa said with a flicker of a smile.

It was funny. People thought I was dumb for loving my brother. And Nisama, in turn, didn't get why I liked Noa. But I was used to loving people everyone thought I shouldn't. They all thought Yugi was a saint because he forgave people, because he looked for the best in everyone. But when I did the same thing, everyone thought I was a stupid kid.

I never got why I should stop loving my brothers – either brother – just because they'd made some horrible mistakes. Noa was family, and I didn't have such a big one that I was going to hand any of them back. I missed him, and I hadn't even gotten to know him, not like a brother should.

"I'm so glad you're here! I missed you," I said. Then it hit me. I didn't want to ask, but I had to know. "Does that mean our… uh… your…"

"My father's here as well."

Shit. It figured he hadn't died for good.

"Is his code as degraded as yours?" I asked, hoping it was true.

"No. I don't know why… maybe it's that I accepted what was happening back on that undersea island. It's funny, he's the one who jumped out of a window, but now he's the one who can't let go. All he can think about is winning, of beating your brother once and for all. I tried so hard to stay alive for my father, and now it's like as far as he's concerned, I don't exist."

"That must suck," I said, for once not thinking about myself or even Nisama.

He started to fade, his signal winking in and out like the bars of a cell phone hitting a dead zone.

"I'd better go," he said while he could still talk.

If it had been Nisama, I would have assumed he was leaving because he didn't want to look weak, not even in front of me. With Noa, I think he just didn't want to upset me when he faded away to nothing.

"Come back as soon as you can," I said.

"I'll bring you news of your brother."

"He's your brother too," I said.

Noa smiled, but he disappeared before he could answer.

* * *

 **KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

I'd stayed up all night staring at the GPS tracker. When Mokuba's red dot had stopped moving I'd told myself that probably meant that he was getting some rest. But I couldn't look away – as if keeping watch could keep him safe. He'd finally started moving again. He was heading in our general direction. It seemed reasonably safe to assume that he and Yami were together and they had use of their wits and a compass. I still didn't relax.

I couldn't imagine getting mad at Mokuba, even now that I'd done it. I felt as empty as I had after Yami had shattered my heart, and just like at Duelist Kingdom, I wasn't going to be whole again until he was with me.

Yami had been the first to condemn me for my anger, to force me to live with the consequences of my blind rage. I should have hated him for that. But he'd judged me by the standards I lived by.

He'd forced me to relive the same nightmare over and over, a power none had shown before or since. He'd marched into my soul after Death-T, like it was a spoil of war. I closed my eyes and saw him, as if his image had been engraved onto the back of my eyelids. His own eyes had blazed into mine, holding something beyond anger, beyond hate… a second, more scorching, heat, as if he'd come not to shatter my soul but to brand it. If a volcano could talk it would have his voice, would reach as deeply inside. He'd stood there, arrogant, erect, enthrallingly powerful – an elemental spirit given human form. He'd surveyed his domain, his body an incongruously slight shell for so much force and energy. Even without moving, I felt its pull. Had I drowned in the wave of power that had followed, or been pushed safely ashore?

I swallowed, mouth dry.

I shook my head. I was losing sight of what was important. Yami had trusted me to set things right, even back then. He was assuming I'd do the same now. And another day of battle lay before us.

I'd set the game to run on a 24-hour clock, but time ran three times as quickly here. That way someone could book a four hour session at KaibaLand and feel like time was passing, that day was turning to night or visa versa – although the latter was an illusion; it never got darker than twilight. I'd made the game clock to confuse the senses. Now I couldn't tell what was real. Either way, the rising sun reminded me it was time for us to get moving.

I went to where Yugi was sleeping and shook him awake, then stared at the scratches on my hand, a souvenir of yesterday's battle.

"Do they hurt?" Yugi asked, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

"No," I answered. They were disturbing nonetheless. My clothes had repaired themselves almost instantly. My hands and face were still scratched. It made sense to see just how far game rules applied to our bodies. I considered my inventory and selected a healing potion. I applied a little to my right hand. The thin red line vanished instantly on contact. I put the rest back in my inventory.

"That's amazing!" Yugi said.

"So," I said, trying to sort it out. I was used to talking out loud with Mokuba. I was reminded all over again of his absence. I took a breath and continued, "We can get hurt, but the healing supplies I put in our inventories will work, provided, I assume, that the injury isn't fatal."

"Makes sense," Yugi said. His facial expression and voice were so different, I couldn't even pretend he was Yami. "Why didn't you fix up the rest of your cuts?"

"I don't know if our supply will replenish itself and we might need it later."

Yugi grinned. "I'm just glad you put it in our inventories."

"It's hard to meet your goals if you're dead."

I checked my inventory again. Our food and water levels were still set on automatic replenish. They obviously had done their job of keeping us properly fed and hydrated. I'd eventually planned to add inns and taverns, since providing places for idiots to congregate would make the game more popular, but I hadn't bothered finishing those features.

I looked at my GPS tracker again, to double check our direction. We headed out in silence. After a few minutes, Yugi said, "Hey, Kaiba… try that unhide codes thing one more time."

"Why? We haven't faced another challenge, much less won one," I argued.

"I have a hunch," Yugi said.

It was illogical as hell, but I did it. I tried not to be annoyed when the game codes appeared in front of us.

"What gives?" I asked.

"There are more than two people on our team. We didn't face a challenge. Yami and Mokuba did."

I stared at the lines of code. It was another proof that Mokuba was alive.

"What is all this stuff?" Yugi asked, pointing to a line of coding.

I was tempted to swat his hand away, but I ordered the program to scroll down, stopping when I got to an unchanged section of coding. It would be easier to explain if I didn't have to work around Gozaburo's additions, much less hieroglyphics.

"The coding sets up the parameters for this world; how it looks, how it operates, in what order functions are performed – it's all here. It's like… let's say you were going to draw a card. You do it automatically, but there's really a sequence to how neural messages are received and sent out that direct each movement of your muscles. This is the same."

I gave a command to highlight a section, pointed to it and said, "That's the Non-Player Character function. It establishes how all the NPCs look and sets up a conduit for them to interact with the players. It's currently inactive. I haven't even written the dialog for them."

Yugi grinned. "I knew this world wasn't supposed to be totally empty," he said. "It must be fun, bringing this all to life." He pointed to the line of coding, and added, "It must be a kick to go: 'Enable Non-Player Character function' and have it happen."

I groaned but it was too late. The line immediately changed from red for inactive to green. Instantly a town sprung up in the distance. Vacant-faced characters started plowing fields and milking cows. I'd planned to enter this game with Mokuba. I'd changed the settings so that anyone accompanying me could initiate changes. I'd never revised it. Despite the damage Gozaburo had done to my program, unfortunately that component still worked as per my specs.

"Change completed," the computer voice said as the lines of code faded, leaving us in a suddenly populated world.

"Oh wow," Yugi said. "Was this all because of me? I'm sorry."

I shrugged. "It was your idea to check the coding."

A farmer looked up and smiled.

"I bet you think this is an improvement," I said sourly.

A female NPC wandered out to join the farmer. She was the proto-type for a barmaid whenever I got around to adding taverns. She was in medieval biker chick gear – a low cut, puffy sleeved blouse, corset vest and a leather miniskirt – just on the right side of a "T" rating. Yugi blushed when she waved and winked at him.

"She'd have the same reaction to the Wicked Worm Beast," I pointed out.

"Yeah, but I'd rather look at her," he said, waving back.

I groaned. "Am I going to have to go through this entire game explaining over and over that these guys aren't real?"

"What's the harm in pretending? It's part of the game. And they're great when you're stuck and need a hand."

"Where's the honor in that?" I asked.

"Huh? Honor? In what?" Yugi asked. He wasn't joking. He was honestly confused.

"In needing help," I answered, exasperated at having to explain something so obvious. I shouldn't have bothered. As usual, Yugi focused on something completely irrelevant.

"So, _can_ they help us? You know like the NPCs do in a video game?" he asked.

"Not these guys, even if I'd written their dialog. They can't do anything your inventory list, compass and map couldn't. I have more specialized NPCs that can perform useful functions, but even if I'd finished and uploaded them, you'd still have to find their hiding places and summon them." I pointed to a cave in the distance. "That could be the home of a Sage. Or it could be empty. Or a monster could jump out looking for a meal."

"I guess that makes the game more exciting," he said, like he was trying to convince himself.

I was tired of his not arguing. I had deliberately made asking for help a choice that carried its own risks and potential penalties – and I hadn't done it for trivial reasons like adding spice and adventure.

"Asking for help doesn't mean that's what you'll get. Revealing a weakness is an invitation to attack – and there'll always be people ready to take you up on it."

I waited for Yugi to launch into some trite speech on the value of friendship, but he surprised me.

"You're right," he said quietly. "Each player should decide for themselves whether they want to risk trusting that other people will be there for them."

He looked at the Non-Player Characters in the distance. He grinned when the female winked and waved again. "That's never going to get old," he said. "I know it was an accident, my turning this all on, I mean… but this place just looks awesome now, Kaiba!"

I grunted. Yugi was praising my commercial acumen, nothing more. I preferred the world empty, except for the monsters. It was more honest that way.

"It may _look_ friendlier," I said, "but this world is just as dangerous as it was a minute ago."

"Something can be friendly and dangerous at the same time."

I wondered if he was thinking about Yami. Once again though, Yugi had spoken so quietly, it took me a moment to realize he was disagreeing.

He still wasn't arguing back though. He was simply adding his opinion to the mix as though two opposing ones could occupy the same time and space without butting heads, without battling for dominance… without connecting. I scowled. It wasn't like I needed someone to push back, to make me defend my position, to make me try to get past his defenses in return.

I studied Yugi more closely. I'd fallen into the trap of thinking of him solely in terms of all the ways he wasn't Yami. But knowing your opponent for who he is, is always good strategy.

"It makes sense you'd appreciate misleading appearances," I observed. "It's your stock in trade."

"Huh?" Yugi said.

"At first glance one is tempted to write you off as an overly deferential bully magnet," I pointed out, waiting for his reaction.

"What?" Yugi squeaked, as if he'd planned out in advance how to best illustrate my words.

"I said that at first glance one is tempted to write you off as an overly…"

"I heard you the first time!" he interrupted.

I couldn't resist. "Then why did you ask me to repeat myself?"

He looked at me seriously. "I don't like thinking about it, but I was a bully magnet… until I met Yami."

"Are you saying he changed you?" I demanded, suddenly not liking the turn the conversation had taken. Yugi knew Yami better than anyone. I'd always acknowledged, to myself at least, that I owed Yami a debt, that he'd freed me from my own darkness. But _I_ was the one who'd put my soul back together; I'd relied on my strength, not his. Yugi was wrong. Yami might have waltzed into my soul like he owned it, but he didn't. I was the only person who could determine who I was and what I became. And Yami knew that, too. He'd said we were equals. I might have had to run to Yami for help, but no matter what Gozaburo had said, that didn't make me anyone's bitch.

"No. I guess it seems that way, but it wasn't," Yugi said. I controlled a slight start of surprise. I'd forgotten that Yugi and I had been talking. "Yami freed me to be who I was, but I didn't change… not really… not on the inside."

I nodded, unaccountably relieved. "The outside hasn't changed much either," I observed. "You're still overly deferential. Is that part of your strategy?"

"How can trying to be true to yourself be a strategy? I believe in being polite and considerate."

I snorted. Being polite had hardly stopped my aunt and uncle from stealing our inheritance and dumping us in an orphanage. And I could just imagine how far being considerate would have gotten me with Gozaburo. Whatever fantasy-land Yugi lived in was even more unreal than this virtual one.

"Are you really so naïve that you think the world will fall in line with your expectations?" I said.

"Not always," he answered.

"So why do it?" I demanded, trying to get him to admit how stupid it was.

"Because it's not something I do – it's something I am. And I'm not giving it up."

I still thought Yugi's approach was ludicrously childish. But I couldn't argue with the idea of staking your claim and refusing to retreat.

* * *

 _  
**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter and helping to keep my Non-Player Characters real… or surreal as the case may be.**   
_

**AUTHOR'S NOTE** : I think it's hard to find two characters more different from each other than Yugi and Kaiba both in terms of life experiences and personality. There's a real feeling that although, technically they speak the same language, they attach such different meanings to their words, even a universal translator (or a Bablefish) wouldn't help. It definitely makes writing their conversations a lot of fun, thinking about all the ways they can miss each other's points.

I find that Yu-Gi-Oh! has a lot of characters that I think would have interesting things to say to each other or who might establish an interesting dynamic, but who rarely, if ever get to know each other. Yugi and Kaiba head the list but it's a pretty long one, and bringing some of these characters together (platonically, anyway) is part of what I think makes fanfiction fun.

 **Random Kaiba Note** : Ironically, in this story, Kaiba built this virtual world to push his buttons – but unfortunately that doesn't make the process any more enjoyable for him.

 _Comments would be appreciated…_


	13. Hidden Arsenal

**CHAPTER 13: HIDDEN ARSENAL**

 _Stories follow the hero, as is right and proper. Once Sleeping Beauty, her family, and a castle's worth of underlings fall asleep, what is there left to do but record each snore as it escapes? Even the trials of a thorn-fighting prince who doesn't rate a name look good by comparison. And yet, the designation of who gets to be the hero is often arbitrary – when it's not downright hierarchical._

 _How do we know there wasn't a scullery maid whose love for the boy in the next town over was doomed by a single finger prick, who was separated from him more completely than Juliet from her Romeo, unable to follow her lover even in death? Who gets to decide that her tragedy is less compelling than Sleeping Beauty's happily-ever-after destiny?_

 _But the bottom line is – whether you go with social status or pick names out of a hat – someone has to be the hero. Someone's story has to take center stage. And that means a lot of someone elses must remain in the background, their actions largely off-camera – or at the very least – out-of-focus. We follow Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo… and forget that an entire Rebel Alliance stands behind them._

 **YUGI'S NARRATIVE**

Kaiba had woken me up in the morning. He'd let me sleep the night through, instead of waking me to take a turn standing guard. I didn't get it.

I knew what Jounouchi would say. He'd never trusted Kaiba. Even after Duelist Kingdom, even after Kaiba had saved his life at Battle City – he still insisted Kaiba had done it for some twisted reason of his own that was going to come back and bite us all in the ass one day.

I loved Jounouchi like a brother, but I didn't agree. Kaiba _had_ changed. It'd been true at Duelist Kingdom, and I'd seen it every time we'd met since. Kaiba was honest. When he'd been trying to kill us, he'd been upfront about it. So when he told me at Duelist Kingdom that he was grateful to me for saving Mokuba, I believed that too.

Right now, he clearly looked on me as a package to be returned to Yami as quickly and efficiently as possible – and in roughly the same condition as he'd received it. I guess that was why, even though he'd stressed the fact that the game couldn't attack us in our sleep, he'd stayed up all night anyway.

At first I just chalked it up to Kaiba being Kaiba. I mean this was a guy who was famous for thinking that no one but him could do anything right. So it wasn't exactly a shock that he hadn't trusted me to keep my eyes open so we could take turns sleeping. But as the day went on, it started to bug me more and more, no matter how many Non-Player Characters waved or winked at me. By the end of the afternoon, I knew I had to say something. Even when I'd thought of myself as too weak for words, Yami had always treated me like an equal partner – until I'd come to believe it myself. I didn't want to fight with Kaiba, but I refused to accept anything less.

"I thought you fixed the game so we could sleep," I said as we walked on, seemingly endlessly.

"I did," he answered.

"So why didn't you? Sleep, I mean."

"Mokuba's out there. It's my fault. All I could think about was how much I didn't want him to be here with me… and now he isn't!And you expect me to _sleep?_ "

I felt like a prize jerk. I'd gotten all worked up imagining Kaiba's contempt – and he'd been thinking about Mokuba the whole time. Which I should have figured out for myself, except I guess being overlooked still hurt, even when it wasn't really what was going on. And now that I was listening to Kaiba, not my own doubts, he sounded pretty down.

"And what about when we do meet up with them?" I asked, trying to be reasonable. "Do you want to be alert or asleep on your feet? Just how long do you think you can stay up for anyway?"

"I can remain fully functional for three days, then judgment and reflexes degrade for another two." He paused. "After that I need to recharge."

I hadn't really expected an answer, much less one that was so detailed and impersonal. I should have known better than to try and out-logic Kaiba.

"Mokuba's not alone. He's with Yami," I pointed out. "Yami will take care of him. You know he's not a…." I tried to remember what Kaiba had always called Jounouchi, "…a mediocre duelist."

"Of course I know that," he said sullenly, as if he resented having to concede the point.

"So you've got to know it's okay to sleep."

"Drop it! I don't need sleep. I need Mokuba!"

He stared at me in shock, angry that the words had spilled out. I knew how he felt about Mokuba… but I'd never expected him to admit he needed anything, not even the brother he'd die to protect. He stalked off, then obviously remembered he'd told Yami he was going to see me safely back to him, and waited for me to catch up.

I thought I hear him mumble something that sounded like, "Sleep is a reward." I wasn't sure if he was talking to me. He sounded so private, as if he'd put up a sign that said, "No trespassers." Yami would have torn down the sign and stomped in anyway. And maybe that was what Kaiba wanted or needed. But before I could figure out what to say, Kaiba's face closed further and the moment for asking – if it had been there at all – was gone.

Now it was my turn to mumble to myself. "I'm not Yami."

"What?" Kaiba yelled. "You think I want that arrogant asshole here? Like I need him to talk to?"

I knew better than to answer that one.

"Have you ever been apart from Mokuba?" I asked instead, suddenly realizing how little I knew about the Kaiba brothers.

"Does being in a coma count?" he asked. It was hard to tell if Kaiba was serious.

"I'm not sure," I said.

He frowned and looked at the ground as if glaring at something, even the dirt, would help him come up with an answer.

"Neither am I. As each piece of my soul clicked into place I felt closer to him than ever, because I was closer to being the brother he deserved… because I knew, despite everything, he was waiting for me. Back before that, I'd managed to convince myself brotherhood was just another illusion. We were farther apart then, even though we'd usually been in the same room."

I managed not to stare. I'd known Kaiba was smart – a genius, even – but I'd never realized he was thoughtful as well. Yami had seen it though, right from the start. No matter how angry he'd gotten – and he'd gotten plenty mad – at Kaiba's fuck-you attitude, he'd always known there was something behind it, something real. I'd been sorry about Kaiba's childhood, what I knew of it anyway… but I'd never really gotten just how much it had shaped him.

Yami had said that being in this game was like being inside Kaiba's soul. It didn't feel that way to me, not really… maybe because I'd been too busy trying to stay alive. But for the first time, I wondered what it must be like for someone as private as Kaiba, having us all here, in this game that he'd designed to sort out his life… having that life so totally mixed with ours.

Kaiba had dueled with his usual coolly professional flair. He'd figured out what had happened when we'd arrived, developed a plan to find Yami and Mokuba, and figured out how to work around the problem of his game coding – a problem I could barely understand, much less resolve. But Kaiba had come up with a way to change the game enough to give us a chance at winning – as long as we could keep meeting its challenges. And he'd done it all while half out of his mind with worry about his brother.

"So, that's what Yami meant," I mumbled.

"What?" Kaiba asked.

"Oh…" I said, startled that Kaiba had heard me – or more accurately, surprised that he was still paying attention to me. Unfortunately, I couldn't think of a memory that would be more awkward to share with Kaiba. "It was… you know… when you were in that coma. I went to visit."

"Mokuba told me. I'm not surprised it was you and not _him,_ " he said. I tried to figure out if he sounded annoyed – or hurt.

"Yami was there with me. He was pretty upset." I frowned. I hadn't known Yami well then, but looking back now, I was surprised at how cut up he'd been. "Anyway, I was worried… you know… that you wouldn't wake up."

"Why would you care? I'd just tried to kill your grandfather."

"I just was. There isn't any 'why.' Yeah, I was mad at what you did. But Jichan was okay, and I didn't want you dead. Not really. And I didn't want this spirit that lived inside of me to be the one that killed you."

Kaiba grunted. I could tell he didn't think much of my answer. If anyone had tried to kill Mokuba, I doubted Kaiba would be visiting them – unless he was checking out their grave to make sure they were still dead.

"Anyway," I continued, wondering if I'd ever get to the end of this conversation, "like I said, I was worried. But Yami said that you'd come back. He said you were the definition of strength."

If it was anyone else, I would have sworn Kaiba looked shy. But his words were as argumentative as ever.

"Yeah, because losing yourself to your own darkness and trying to kill your own brother just reeks of strength," he said.

"No. But Yami was sure that despite everything you'd find your way back. You're the only one who came back from one of his penalty games."

"He could have killed me," Kaiba said. "He chose not to."

I wanted to protest that Yami would never have killed him. But as true as it was now, I wasn't sure how true it had been then.

"We played two penalty games," Kaiba continued. "Most people focus on the word 'penalty.' But the important word is 'game.' And as with any game, there's always a chance."

"To win?" I asked.

"To survive."

He dropped the words into the conversation as uncompromisingly as ever. But there was a quietness to Kaiba that made it seem okay to ask, "What was it like?"

"You really don't remember anything?" he asked me.

I shook my head.

"Dying is easier if you believe that losing and dying are a pair of conjoined twins. After a lifetime of believing that life is played against a stacked deck, I had lost everything all on my own. Dying wasn't the shock. Living past that moment was. I heard Yami calling me," Kaiba said, and that odd – if it had been anyone else I'd call it self-conscious – look was back on his face.

"He knew you'd fight your way back," I said.

It was funny. Kaiba didn't do anything as obvious as fish for information, but I couldn't help feeling that he wanted to hear more.

"Yami said the same thing at Alcatraz. He said he wasn't worried that you'd try to blow yourself up, because as long as there was a challenge on the horizon you'd be there to meet it." I remembered something and smiled. "He still screamed for you when the island blew up and you were nowhere in sight. Not too many people manage to fake him out like that."

"It wasn't intentional," he said.

I stared at him, suddenly realizing we'd managed to hold a real live conversation. Unfortunately, I've always been bad at hiding my thoughts and Kaiba was just as good at reading people.

"Look… I'm not stupid," he said. "I know you were the one who saved Mokuba at Duelist Kingdom. I sure as hell didn't. I owe you my trust for that, don't I?"

"No. You don't owe me your trust any more than you owe me your friendship. I'd like both."

I wasn't surprised when Kaiba turned away. He paced back and forth, then came back and stood in front of me, arms crossed, leaning slightly back. I looked up at him.

"I was the one who invited you _both_ in here."

Actually I thought that the only reason he'd let me in his game was because, until recently, Yami and I had been a package deal. Then I realized something. Kaiba might look on me merely as an item to be delivered; he might not have wanted to relax that responsibility; he might not have wanted to take his eyes off me long enough for me to pee unobserved… but when a fight had gone down, he'd trusted me to hold my own.

I guess Kaiba wasn't the only one who had something to learn about friendship.

* * *

 **JOUNOUCHI'S NARRATIVE**

Honda, Anzu and me stopped by the game shop in the morning. We'd told Sugoroku what had happened right away, of course. He'd taken the news that his grandson was trapped in a video game pretty well, but we'd gotten into the habit of checking in each day anyway, just to make sure he was okay. We shouldn't have worried. The old man was as tough as Yugi. When the Kaiba Corporation limousine pulled up at the game shop to pick us up, he'd winked at Anzu and said a pretty girl looked even prettier in the backseat of a limo. She'd turned the most amazing shade of red. Then she hit me. It didn't seem fair to smack a guy just for laughing.

The limo took us to the Industrial Illusions building. I wanted to make sure Pegasus wasn't just dicking us around. Isono trailed along. He seemed to think he was our security detail, although thinking of a skinny guy like Isono in the category of "muscle" was pretty funny. Besides it was tough having a bodyguard you couldn't risk turning your back on.

"I see Kaiba Corporation's stock price has gone up slightly," Pegasus said when we arrived.

"Gee… I'd hate to think you were losing money," I said.

"I don't own any KC stock, my callow young friend," he replied, drawling. "But it is interesting news, nonetheless. It lets us know that our ruse is working. If word of Kaiba-boy's disappearance had leaked to his ignorantly adoring fans, the first place we'd see the fall-out is in the financials."

I scowled. Even when he was right, the guy made my skin crawl.

"Have you found anything out?" Anzu asked eagerly.

"I had to find out what Kaiba-boy was trying to do, before I could determine what should be done next. I've gone through the codes from the last trial run before he entered the game with Yugi's not-so-imaginary friend. And Mokuba left me the virtual world's access codes. I can see the game as it is now – but only on a read-only basis."

He was all business now. I'd always known that drawling, stupid shit was an act.

"Read-only?" Anzu asked. "Does that mean you can't change it?"

"Of course I can't. If it was that simple, Kaiba-boy could have done it himself, from his office. He's quite the accomplished little programmer."

"He would not have been such a tempting target for so many if he were not a genius," Isono said.

Man, Isono was getting chatty, now that Kaiba wasn't around to hold his leash. It was the second time he'd taken a jab at Pegasus over the Kaiba brothers in as many visits. I could understand Isono getting pissed off over the crack about Mokuba, but Kaiba? Isono had to work with the asshole every day. A trip to the dentist looked good by comparison. And here Isono was defending him like…

"Hey! You're not doing this just for a paycheck!" I blurted out. "You really think of that jerk as your friend, don't you?"

Isono scowled at me like we were in school and he was my teacher.

"That would be inappropriate," he said sternly.

"Mokuba gave us this stuff for a reason. He must have thought we could help. I'm not letting him down," Honda insisted.

"So noble," Pegasus murmured. He fussed with his stupid floppy sleeves while we waited to see if he was going to say anything else. What was a grown man doing with a shirt that had so many ruffles it reminded me of one of my sister's nightgowns, anyway?

"I said I could tell what was going on in the game," he repeated.

"Did they look okay? What are they saying?" I interrupted.

"Of course I can't actually _see_ them. Do you think they got transported to an episode of 'Funny Bunny?' Now, that would be amusing. Thankfully, I have no ability to listen in on what I'm sure are their entirely predictable conversations. I've been doing something much more entertaining. I've been watching each change made in the program's coding as it occurs. Kaiba-boy had installed a bunch of features that would make the game more commercial. He'd never activated them, probably because their sole functions were to help the player in some way he considered beneath his dignity. It's lucky, really. They also escaped the notice of whoever's been re-writing their program."

"So what? How does that help us?" I asked.

"Kaiba seems to have decided survival is worth more than dignity. He can't erase the changes his opponents made to his game, but piece by piece he's trying to re-write his way around them."

"So all we have to do is wait?" I said skeptically.

"This is Kaiba. It's hardly that simple. He must work within the constraints of his game. He can't delete any of the changes. But if they win a challenge, he gets to add to the coding – if he can figure out a way to adapt it to take him where he wants to go. Ingenious, really. A wonderful metaphor, although I doubt he's in a position to appreciate the irony."

I groaned. I wished he'd stop droning on about metaphors and irony. School was bad enough without having to listen to Pegasus too.

"What can we do to help them?" Anzu asked. I was proud of her and Honda. It's a good thing they were here. I kept getting distracted by how much I hated the guy.

"Someone has activated the Non-Player Character functions," he added.

"That doesn't sound like something Kaiba would do," Honda said, doubtfully.

"Yugi!" Anzu said with a smile.

"Yeah," I agreed with relief. "That could only be him."

"Thanks to Mokuba, I have limited uploading permission. I can tie you into those characters," Pegasus continued. "The Non-Player Characters are tied to their specific locations. But if you assume their identities you can see and hear anything within their range of vision. And if, say… Yugi walked past one of your Non-Player Character's sites and summoned you, you would be able to talk to him just as if you were the NPC itself."

Anzu jumped up and hugged him. "Thank you, thank you!" she said, crying a little.

Pegasus surprised me. He looked human for a minute… and a little uncomfortable. I could almost forget he'd kidnapped Yugi's grandfather. I could almost overlook the fact he was a snobby jerk who probably slept in that damned red suit.

"You might not be as grateful once you actually see Kaiba's NPCs. But the main thing is that you'll be safe. You won't really be in the game and it can't harm you since you'll be a _Non_ -Player Character."

He was speaking to Anzu, not us.

"How does it work?" Anzu asked.

"Kaiba-boy set up the avatars, but he never finished designing them and most importantly, he never wrote the dialog for them. It's very fortunate. It means if you can get your friends' attention, you can speak your own dialog. They'll hear your voices through the pre-set NPCs." He looked over his shoulder at me and Honda. "Don't bother to thank me for discovering it."

I grinned. "I wouldn't think of it."

"I can also see a log of the cards played in each challenge both by the players and the game itself, as well as any weapons used. It's been an eye-opener to say the least, watching the cards picked by what I assume to be the _four_ players facing the game's challenges."

"Four?" Honda said.

"It's a bit like reading the score card of a baseball game and deducing each player's actions from the notations. A dying art… keeping a score card properly…"

"Never mind that! What do you mean _four_ players?" I yelled.

Pegasus plastered his most innocent expression on his face.

"Just what I said, my dear boy. I recognized Kaiba-boy's pedal to the metal attack style and love of all things dragonish. There's another player whose card choices, although surprisingly effective, especially when backed up by his more experienced partner, could – if one was inclined to be charitable – best be called eccentric. I'm assuming that's Mokuba. For some reason, the Kaiba brothers have not been paired together in a single challenge yet – and it's the other two duelists that interest me greatly. The one paired with Kaiba-boy has a penchant for weaker monsters and the surprising ability to make them pay off."

"Yeah, that's Yugi – we knew he was there. It's why we came to you, remember?" I said.

"And the other – the one partnering Mokuba – plays the Black Magician like he was a long lost friend."

"Oh shit!" Honda and I said at the same time.

"Precisely. That does fit in with both Yugi's conclusion that Millennium Items are involved… and some of the more unusual aspects of the game coding."

"Like what?"

"Oh, did I forget to mention it? Some of the lines of coding are in hieroglyphic – and I doubt that was Kaiba-boy's doing."

"Spill it! What does it say?" I yelled.

"The most important line? 'All that happens here becomes real.'"

"What does that mean?" Anzu asked.

"Just what it says, I hope," he answered as he dismissed us from the room.

* * *

 _  
**Thanks to Bnomiko for her help making sure the emerging details of how this all works are clear.**   
_

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I knew that since I was writing a story that takes place in a virtual world, at some point I'd have to figure out how it worked. I have to admit though, I had no idea there would be so many details to work through – like whether characters need to eat or what would happen if they get hurt. Almost any decision could potentially work – since you have people physically in a virtual world powered in part by shadow magic, but it's still necessary to make the decision, and then move on to the next question. I guess I always thought of world-building in terms of big questions, not little ones like do they go to the bathroom.

I also thought that world-building would start with, well, building a world _first_ and then writing the story around that – and for many people that's probably how it works. It certainly seems like the logical approach. For me though, the sequence happened in the reverse order. I had the story first and then had to figure out what kind of a world and what the rules had to be to (hopefully) plausibly accomplish that - and this all has to be brought in (again, hopefully) without breaking up the flow of the story. It's definitely been interesting. One thing that's fun about writing fanfiction is that you get to explore a lot of new things whether it's bringing together characters who never got a chance to say much to each other or building a virtual world.

 **Score card Note:** In baseball you can keep score on a scorecard. It's basically a grid that has the innings across the top row and you write in the player's names in the row on the left side. As each player comes to bat, you use one of a variety of notations to indicate what happens. Anyway, this is definitely an endeavor that has waned in popularity. On vacation I went to a minor league game where I was keeping a score card – and the guy sitting next to me looked over to see what I was doing and said, "Wow… no one keeps a score card anymore. I swear it's a dying art!" No… he wasn't wearing a red suit and a frilly shirt. I checked.

 _Comments would be appreciated…_


	14. Power of the Guardians

**Gaming Note:** NPC stands for Non-Player Character.

* * *

**CHAPTER 14: POWER OF THE GUARDIANS**

_Achilles' mother did almost everything right. Alas, close only counts in horse-shoes and hand grenades, and never in the all-important task of baby dunking. For the detail she forgot was the one that mattered most. As she held her son in the River Styx, the tiny patch of infant skin that lay warm beneath her hand never received the water's blessings._

_And heroes ever since have been plagued by their own personal Achilles' heels. We think "Superman," we think "Kryptonite" with the next breath. But, in the early comics at least, wasn't Superman's need to hide his true nature even from the people he loved, wasn't his fear that his very existence would put them in danger, a vulnerability too? There's little relief in stopping speeding bullets when the same superpower is as effective a barrier to love._

_As Achilles learned, vulnerability can be deadly. But regardless of what the thesaurus says, it's not always a synonym for weakness. Sometimes, as with Luke Skywalker, fighting to save the galaxy and his sister, the things that make us vulnerable make us stronger as well._

**YAMI'S NARRATIVE**

We'd faced another challenge… a much simpler one this time. Millennium Items hadn't been involved. It had seemed almost designed to prove to both Mokuba and myself my willingness to protect him… to prove not just that we _could_ – but that we _did_ trust each other. Had the game picked up on our conversation the night before? I couldn't shake the idea that the challenge had come into being not to test Mokuba, but to reassure him.

Maybe I was reading too much into things. The line between fantasy and reality was so much thinner here. Perhaps the game had simply decided the terrain was challenging enough. The riverbed had narrowed and wandered into a vista of tumbled boulders and rock walls. We'd been scrambling among them all day. We'd occasionally seen another hiker in the distance, usually inappropriately dressed for climbing rocks. For one thing, the girls had all been wearing high heeled boots.

"That's weird," Mokuba had said after we'd caught sight of the first ones. "Those are NPCs. I wonder what they're doing here. Nisama thinks they're a waste of time. He hadn't even gotten around to writing their dialog. I wonder why he activated them. Maybe he's trying to test out what he can change."

I nodded. It was an encouraging sign that Kaiba had managed to make some changes in the programming.

It was strange being here… it was strange being anywhere. Back in Domino I'd felt vaguely guilty any time I'd been visible. Only the necessity of protecting Yugi could excuse it, since every moment I walked the Earth was a moment stolen from him.

And yet there had been a disloyal charm to those times. I smiled, remembering my duels with Kaiba, picturing him standing before me, power implicit in every precisely controlled movement, the fire in his stare warming me to the life I had no right to desire. He could make me forget that I was a disembodied spirit, that the blood rushing through my veins was not my own.

It was different here. I had found a place where I could be myself without displacing my partner.

I was aware of my body, as if it was an extra companion… of the feel of my fingers digging into the rock crevices, my feet scrambling for footholds, at times slipping on the uneven ground. Even the exhaustion at the end of the day, the feeling of sore and stretched muscles, of sweat trickling down my back, was mine.

It was good to finally stop moving, to rest, to feel the cool night air caress the roof of my mouth with each breath, to have its warmer cousin brush my lip as I exhaled.

I glanced at my companion. At first Mokuba had been buoyed up by the challenge we'd won; the rest of the day's trek had distracted him. But gradually, he'd gotten quieter and quieter, responding to my attempts at conversation with monosyllabic replies.

I'd promised to take care of Mokuba. He was safe, but he was hurting nonetheless. Automatically I searched my mind for Yugi's presence, but I was alone. I'd have to find my own answers. And what ailed Mokuba couldn't be cured by a duel.

I understood. I missed Yugi terribly. In that first moment here… seeing Yugi's face without needing to use his eyes and a mirror to do so, being able to stand by his side as a friend and not a spirit, had been an indescribable joy. And yet, I'd almost have chosen to forgo it, to return all the pleasure this body was giving me, if I could be with him and know that he was safe. Brief as our separation had been, it had gone on for too long.

"Even with the boulders to slow us down, we should reach your brother and Yugi soon," I reminded Mokuba.

He nodded and tried to smile. It was a failing effort.

"I shouldn't have disobeyed Nisama," he said.

I stared at him. It was hard to believe this, and not the mere separation was what was bothering him, but his eyes were bright with tears.

"You can't think he'll still be mad at you! He almost killed himself trying to get to you," I said urgently.

"That's the point! That's why it feels disloyal," he said, rubbing his sleeve across his eyes.

"Loyalty and obedience are not the same thing," I pointed out.

"They are for me! You don't get it," he said fiercely.

Mokuba was right. I'd stood in the center of Kaiba's soul room. I'd never known what had happened to bring us to that point.

"I'd like to. Why are you so worried about seeing him?"

"I'm not! It's what I want more than anything! It's just that whenever I disobey my brother… bad things happen…"

"Go on," I said when Mokuba paused.

"It's funny… it's like I waited my whole life for someone to ask about my brother. But _talking_ about it…" He paused again, then said, "My brother always expected me to obey him instantly. Like if he told me to be quiet – it meant a teacher or Gozaburo was around and I had to shut up fast or we'd be in trouble. It took me a while to understand… if I did something my brother would be the one to…" He paused again. "I could never figure it out… why my brother would get so pale if someone caught us doing anything we shouldn't; our adoptive father never did anything to me. I waited up one night after we'd gotten caught sneaking out during the day. All Gozaburo had said was that he'd see my brother later. I guess I spied on Nisama. I just wanted to know."

"What happened?" I asked as quietly as I could, afraid to scare him into silence… wanting to know Kaiba better, even by proxy.

"Gozaburo challenged him to a chess match. If Nisama won he got to pick who got punished, him or me. That bastard made my brother fight for the right to get beaten in my place."

"Who won?" I asked, knowing the answer, needing to hear it anyway.

Mokuba stared at me. "Before he met you my brother never lost. Not once."

"Some patterns are made to be broken." I tried to sound confident for Mokuba's sake. I wondered how often Kaiba had forced the same note of certainty into his voice. "Kaiba is looking for a true future. I'm sure he'll find it. You both will."

I felt a surprising rush of pleasure when Mokuba gave me a genuine, if tentative, smile, and lay down at my side, his head pillowed against my leg.

"I don't blame him for anything that happened," Mokuba said, his voice starting to slur with impending sleep.

I smiled. "You never do."

It was my turn to take the first watch. I was glad of the time to think.

A child is a heavy responsibility. And yet Kaiba had become Mokuba's father when he'd still been a boy himself. In all the time I'd known him, not once had his shoulders sagged beneath the weight. Or had he held them so erect for Mokuba's sake?

I'd felt sympathy for Kaiba, at times unwillingly. I'd never understood why. And for once, the obvious answer – that he was tied to my memories, to my past – was unsatisfying. I'd come here to discover my identity. Now I wondered, with almost equal urgency, just who Kaiba was.

The twilight seemed to deepen around me; the shadows got darker. I eased Mokuba's head off my leg. I was pleased to see that he didn't wake up. Mokuba was sure it was safe to sleep. I believed that Kaiba would have found a way to ensure it as well. I got up anyway and stood in front of Mokuba, shielding him from whatever was arriving with the oncoming darkness.

I was expecting a monster. What I got were two boys. I gasped as I recognized them, even though I could barely see the older one's blue eyes under the heavy fringe of brown hair. Kaiba was younger than I'd ever seen him, eight years-old at a guess – two years younger than the boy I'd met in his soul room after Death-T. He was in a T-Shirt and shorts. It was strange to see Kaiba – even a miniature Kaiba – attired in the typical outfit of childhood.

He held an impossibly small Mokuba in his arms. Mokuba stared back at me, like his brother all eyes and hair. Mokuba's legs were wrapped around his older brother's waist. Kaiba was bent slightly back to balance the weight. If it bothered him, he gave no sign.

"Let me help you," I said, reaching forward.

Kaiba's reaction was immediate. He hissed, and hugged his brother even more tightly. Instantly the darkness I had banished at Death-T sprang up around them, a barrier and a protection.

Mokuba whimpered as the shadows danced around them.

"Remember what I told you," Kaiba said to him. "We'll be okay. But if you want to be happy you can't ever reveal your feelings. Get a grip on yourself and stop crying."

Mokuba nodded, stifling his sobs.

"If the shadows bother you, just don't look at them. I'll take care of this guy. I'll take care of everything. I promise."

Mokuba obeyed his brother. He shut his eyes and turned his head into his brother's shoulder.

"I'm not going to hurt you – either of you. It's okay," I said.

"It is now," Kaiba said with a grin, gesturing to the darkness surrounding them. His smile was edged with malice. It was also impishly gleeful; he was so proud of his skill in summoning shadows.

"You're trying to protect him, aren't you?" I said, gesturing to Mokuba. "But you're making a mistake. You can't do this alone."

"You see anyone else here?" he taunted.

"I'm here. I'm willing to help, Kaiba. I've always been so."

"Who's Kaiba? You expect me to trust someone who doesn't even know my name?" he sneered.

"I want to help, Seto," I repeated, remembering that the boy in front of me hadn't become "Kaiba" yet.

"You must think I'm stupid. No one wants to help. People are out for what they can get."

"I know about your aunt and uncle. Not everyone is like them."

"Well, either that or they just die. Same result either way."

"Like your father and mother?" I asked.

"Mom dying wasn't Mokuba's fault!" he yelled, clutching his brother even more tightly. The shadows became slightly more impenetrable.

"Of course not," I agreed as calmly as I could. As often happened with Kaiba, I had the sense I was speaking to a wild, woodland animal, that I had to be careful not to startle him into retreat – or attack.

He stared at me suspiciously, but relaxed his hold just a little. The shadows lightened slightly. It was frightening how completely they responded to his mood.

"Did anyone say it was?" I asked.

"Of course not," he said. His grin widened. I couldn't quite call it a lie – despite the words he made no pretense he was telling the truth.

"Sometimes Mokuba still thinks she's coming back, that he's going to get to meet her – like the hospital made a mistake or something. It's never going to happen, of course."

He looked at me. I wondered if he realized a note of appeal had crept into his voice and into the eyes that he raised to mine. Did he want me to tell him that Mokuba's pipe dream could come true?

"No," I agreed as gently as I could. "It's not going to happen."

"Of course not. I know that!" he said impatiently. "Mokuba's the one who doesn't get it, not me. But he's three. He can't help being dumb. It's okay though. I'm smart enough for the two of us until he gets old enough to be smart on his own. My mom said I'm so responsible I was born to be an older brother," he boasted.

"She was right," I said, pleased to see the shadows recede still further although they never truly left. Was this all it would have taken to banish them? For someone to have taken an interest in this curious child, to have taken his welfare to heart?

"My dad said Mokuba was lucky to have a brother like me." He frowned. I knew Kaiba well enough to realize this came too close to disloyalty for him to accept. I wasn't surprised when Seto added, "He was wrong. _I'm_ lucky to have _him_."

He glared at me defiantly, as if he expected me to take up the argument in his father's place.

"You're both right. You're lucky to have each other," I said mildly.

Seto nodded, satisfied with my answer.

"But I'm the oldest. I like being bigger. It means I'm in charge."

"You're very smart. But if you truly want to help your brother, you must learn to be wise as well."

"I take care of him just fine! We don't need anyone!" he yelled.

The shadows had grown again. He relaxed as he saw them.

"You're a brave child, but dealing in shadows will hurt your brother. It will almost destroy _you_. You don't realize it yet, but you will."

"I'm not a child!" Seto yelled, seizing on that one word and ignoring everything else I'd said. He was holding Mokuba so tightly, I was surprised the little guy hadn't given a yelp. But Mokuba just burrowed deeper into his brother's shoulder. He followed Seto's instructions to stay quiet and not look. "Kids can be lied to and pushed around and thrown out like the garbage," Seto continued just as fiercely. "They can be separated from each other while a bunch of people who don't even know them smile and say it's for their own good. Well, no one's doing that to me and Mokuba!"

The edge of the shadow seemed to have formed itself into claws. I took a step back, aware that Seto would read it as weakness. But he had to calm down a little or the darkness would overwhelm him right before my eyes.

"They do what I tell them to," he said proudly.

There it was again – the little brat was showing off. I was tempted to wipe that smug smile off his face. He laughed and I thought of Kaiba at Alcatraz, creating a holographic stadium full of people chanting his name, cheering him on. Had he been trying to fill a void eight years too late?

"They listen to you for now," I said. "But that will change. If you keep to this path it will prove to be your undoing. The shadows can not be controlled once you invite them in."

"I can!" he boasted.

I sighed. It was hard to believe that Kaiba had actually gotten _less_ stubborn as he'd grown up.

"What about Mokuba?" I asked. "If being a child is such a bad thing, isn't he a child?"

He frowned. Interestingly the shadows lightened as he considered this new puzzle.

"Maybe he is. For a little while. But that's okay, because I'm the one in charge. So it's okay because we're a team." He nodded, pleased with himself for sorting it out.

I sighed, suddenly aware of why Kaiba angered me so consistently. No matter how many duels I won, he made me feel helpless. I couldn't break through the anger that swirled around him like the shadows in front of me. I'd banished the darkness after Death-T; the rage remained and no matter how loudly I yelled, it drowned out my words. I tried to teach; he tried to impose his own lessons just as forcefully. It was exciting, but that wasn't all I wanted. I could buy his temporary attention with each victory, but the times he listened freely were more precious. I saw so much in him. I wanted to look more deeply still; I wanted him not just to allow my gaze, but to desire it. I wanted him to believe in me.

Mokuba and I had camped in a clearing. The wind had picked up while we were talking. It finally had grown strong enough to topple a boulder in the rock piles that surrounded us. It was too far away to be a threat, but I whipped around at the noise. When I turned back, Seto – and the shadows – were gone.

"Huh? What? I'm awake!" Mokuba said, sitting up.

"A boulder fell. It's nothing. Go to sleep," I said.

Mokuba stared at me. His eyes narrowed until they reminded me of his brother.

"You sure nothing's wrong? You look like you just saw a ghost or something."

"I think I did. I saw your brother."

"Nisama's here?" Mokuba jumped up.

"No. Not really. He was a child."

"Are you sure you weren't…" Mokuba said hesitantly.

"Asleep? Dreaming? I'm sure – unless I've developed the ability to sleep standing up. He couldn't have been more than eight." I hesitated, not wanting to upset Mokuba. But Mokuba knew his brother. His love had never been blind, and he was my companion. He deserved the truth. "Your brother was surrounded by a darkness. No, more than surrounded… he'd summoned it; it was his companion."

"Was he okay?" Mokuba asked, looking around, ready to run after my little phantom if he spotted him.

"He wasn't in any danger he hadn't invited in. I think I was seeing something that had already happened."

"Yeah," Mokuba said glumly. "That's just what he did. He was eight? What did he look like?"

"Small. Brave. Damnably reckless. He was holding you in his arms."

"I always thought of him as being all grown up. Eight. Shit. That's four years younger than me. That's how old he was when we got sent to the orphanage." Mokuba paused then looked at me. "You know how much Nisama must trust you, letting him see something he'd rather die than reveal?"

"I know. I'll live up to it. And I promise, we'll see him soon for real," I assured Mokuba.

"I miss him," Mokuba said. But he lay back down to finish his turn to sleep.

I thought of the child I'd just seen. Seto's face had been childishly rounded, instead of the narrow oval I'd grown used to. Everything about the boy I'd met, except his demeanor, had screamed of vulnerability. I'd wanted his trust so desperately. But was it the trust of a child I craved, or the trust of the man he'd grown into? But Kaiba had come to trust me. It was a fragile, wary trust, born of desperation, but it was real. It was something I could hold onto, something I could hug to myself as my own.

"So do I, Mokuba," I said, but my companion had fallen asleep. "So do I," I repeated to the night air. Even after Mokuba woke up and it was my turn to rest, sleep was a long time coming.

This time there was no doubt; I knew I was dreaming. I was in Kaiba's soul room again. It was after Death-T. Unlike every other time I'd thought or dreamed of this moment, Kaiba wasn't a child. He was as tall and defiant as ever. His eyes burned into mine. There was a challenge in them. My own eyes narrowed in response. He parted his lips. I wasn't sure what, if anything, he was planning to say.

Then, suddenly, we were both in the savannah that had greeted us on our arrival. We were alone. Once again, I stroked his cheek, let my fingers glide down his neck, becoming aware of my own body in the act of touching his. The air felt charged. If a storm was coming, I was ready to meet it. I took a step forward. Kaiba disappeared.

I awoke with a start. I was lying in our clearing; Mokuba was standing guard nearby. His back was to me. I stared at the twilight-lit sky. It was empty except for the faint shimmer of the stars. I closed my eyes again.

* * *

**SUGOROKU'S NARRATIVE**

My grandson had disappeared into a video game. I was going to be able to see and talk to him, to reassure myself that he was okay, that he'd be home soon… because of Pegasus' assistance. A Kaiba Corporation limousine was taking the kids and me to Industrial Illusions for the briefing on how it would all work.

There are times when life stops making sense and you just have to accept your place as a passenger in a vehicle being driven by karma.

It was strange to think I'd never been in the same room as Pegasus until today, never met him. I still hadn't in a way. But maybe you can't steal someone's soul without leaving a sense of yourself behind. I stared at the portrait dominating Pegasus' office. Anzu had described the one in his mansion; this must have been its twin. Cynthia's eyes were sad as she gazed down at her husband. Pegasus didn't meet mine. I thought worse of him for that. How do you kidnap someone's soul and then refuse to acknowledge their existence?

He briefly described how the set-up would work, an explanation I'd neither understood nor questioned. He had finished and uploaded a NPC. Its face now matched mine. I suppose he had enough video of me from when he'd set up his kidnap attempt to perform this more superficial grafting of my face onto the avatar's vacant body. Through a combination of visual imaging equipment, microphones and voice recognition software, I could look through its eyes; it would speak with my voice. Hopefully, by the end of the night, I'd have seen my grandson. That's all that mattered.

We got up when he'd finished speaking. He came over to me as we walked towards the door.

"Do you believe in atonement? Or have you seen too much in your long life?" he asked.

"I've seen enough to know that the person you want your answer from isn't me," I said.

He finally met my eyes then. I was reminded he only had one. It was as haunted as I'd expected.

The limo was waiting downstairs. Possibly it hadn't moved. We got into the back seat. It was wide enough – and the kids were narrow enough – that we could sit four abreast.

"Thank you for letting me be the first to speak to Yugi," I told them.

"Pegasus made it clear it would work best if each person was tied to a NPC that matched them. Who were we going to pick to be the wise sensei? Me?" Jounouchi said.

I laughed.

"Your avatar was finished first. Pegasus said Kaiba had done the most work on it. But we'll be joining you just as soon as Pegasus finishes the rest," Honda said.

"Besides…" Jounouchi paused, then added, "I wouldn't be a duelist at all, man, if it wasn't for you. And you being the first, and being the Sage… it just feels right."

I hugged him. He looked relieved when the limo pulled up to the Kaiba Corporation building. We went to the lab. No one challenged us. Two men in black suits were waiting. They bowed as I entered. One handed me a visor. It was designed to wrap around the top part of my face. When I put it on it would completely cut off my vision. An earpiece and microphone were attached.

"It's one of Seto-Sama's designs. The NPC interactions weren't intended to be broadcast at this stage of their development. You will be the only one able to speak to and hear the players in the game." He handed me a remote and added, "You have access to all of the caves that contain a Sage. You can use this to switch views."

I nodded and followed him to a computer console. A midnight blue leather chair was in front. I sank into it. The chair was as comfortable as it looked. It matched a couch along the back wall.

"I'm ready," I said as I placed it over my head and turned it on.

For a brief moment I was blind. Then my eyes adjusted – either to the visor or the darkness of the cave around me. I wasn't inside the game, Pegasus had been right about that. I was still aware of my body in Kaiba's comfortable leather chair. But the game dominated my field of vision, imposed itself on my sight with an intensity that startled me. I clicked on the remote and viewed one vista after another: deserts, towns full of imaginary people, mountains, all passed in front of me – all empty of the one person I wanted to see.

In the end, I heard my grandson's voice before I saw him. I was staring at a meadow. Farmers were ploughing fields in the distance. Yugi's voice was on my right. I tried to run to him, to wave, to do anything to attract his attention, but I couldn't move outside of the confines of my cave. Pegasus had warned us we were tied to our avatar's locations. Now I understood what that meant.

"Look, it's a cave!" Yugi yelled excitedly. "Let's see if it has a summoning rune! One of your NPCs could be in there."

"Exactly how many times do I have to tell you I never activated that function before an elementary piece of information like that starts to sink in?" Kaiba replied.

I bristled at his tone. But my grandson laughed.

"Then it won't matter if I walk up to it and see if anyone's home," he said.

"Get to one side," Kaiba ordered, his voice as harsh and angry as I remembered. Yet my grandson had insisted he'd changed. "Never stand directly in front of a cave entrance even if you're trying to summon something," he added. "If there's a monster in there, it'll kill you before you can draw a weapon."

"Wait a minute! You didn't activate the NPC function, but you stocked some of the caves with monsters anyway?" Yugi asked.

I could see Kaiba now. He'd moved directly in front of the cave's entrance, although he stayed far back, beyond even a giant's grasp. He had a katana in one hand, a shuriken in the other. More shuriken appeared on a strap across his chest. He was tall and painfully thin. He'd grown since I'd seen him; his weight had not caught up. Despite his instructions, I wished Yugi would come into view. The knowledge that they might walk past this spot without realizing I was here gnawed at me as if my cave was filled with biting insects instead of just musty darkness.

"Let's get this farce over with. It's boring," Kaiba said.

"I will, just as soon as you move out of the way," Yugi said.

Kaiba shook his head. "I need the practice. Mokuba's life might depend on my ability to stay alert."

I still couldn't see Yugi, but I could almost feel him shrug. "Be careful. I have my spray canister. I'm ready to back you up."

Kaiba nodded. I realized they were making all these preparations to destroy the monster they seemed to think might be lurking in my cave. In other words – _me_.

"If it's the Wicked Worm beast, don't bother," Kaiba said.

Before I could figure out what that cryptic utterance meant, Yugi touched the side of my cave and I was suddenly, blessedly, able to talk and move.

"Yugi!" I yelled as I appeared in front of the cave. Instinctively I ducked to the ground as soon as I became visible. Kaiba's shuriken passed over my head.

"Jichan!" Yugi yelled. He had some sort of spray canister on his back. It disappeared as he ran towards me. He looked healthy, even happy. Can computer generated avatars cry real tears?

I wasn't really in their world. I had no tactile ability. I felt Yugi's embrace nonetheless. I was glad my avatar was solid enough in his world to hug him back. I didn't want to let go, as if he was a child that would only be safe in my arms. Yugi would always be my little boy, but he was growing into a fine young man. I took a step back and cleared my throat.

"I love you, too," I said. "Are you okay?"

Yugi nodded. "We're fine. Honest."

I didn't see Mokuba. But neither my grandson nor Kaiba seemed upset, and they had mentioned him in the present tense. Or had Kaiba been speaking generally? I suddenly wondered whether they knew that Mokuba had followed them – or if they thought him safe at home.

"Where's Mokuba?" I asked, afraid of the answer.

"We got separated. But he'll be okay. He's with…" Yugi's voice trailed off.

"The spirit of the pharaoh who inhabits your Puzzle?" I supplied.

Yugi paused, gulped, and blurted out, "I guess you know all about the Puzzle now – and about Yami. Jichan, I'm so sorry I didn't tell you myself, right from the start."

I had heard about it from Jounouchi and Anzu. It hadn't been a shock. Every time my grandson had entered the room, I'd felt the air of magic, the sense of a prophecy being fulfilled; I'd seen it in action every time he'd dueled. I'd kept silent, watching as he made friends and gained confidence. If there was a spirit in that Puzzle, I was sure it wasn't hurting him. I'd been content.

Perhaps it was cowardly, but I was grateful I'd never met the spirit again. I'd been a young man myself when an apparition had saved my life and handed me a Puzzle. Mercifully he'd remained an abstraction. I could forget the spirit of the Puzzle was more than that, that he was a boy who'd given me his most treasured possession, a boy who'd died before his life could properly be said to have begun. My grandson had been braver.

"It's all right, Yugi. You're of an age to keep secrets… even from me."

"Something happened when we came here," Yugi said "He's a separate person, not stuck in the Puzzle or… you know… with me. Anyway, we got separated. He's with Mokuba. We think they're okay. We can track them, sort of."

Jounouchi had told me Kaiba had left behind a GPS tracker. It made sense he'd brought another one along.

Yugi looked at my avatar and frowned at the words hanging over my head. We each could only interface with this world or its occupants by assuming the identity of a NPC. Kaiba had designed their outfits, but had left the avatars' faces formless enough that Pegasus had been able to imprint our own features on them. But Kaiba had also labeled each character. The words "Senile Keeper of Useless Trivia" hung over my head in gold letters like a sarcastic aurora. I suppose, looking at my robes, it was Kaiba's way of indicating a Sage.

Yugi looked at the words again, then turned to the taller boy, who'd been standing off to the side. It was hard to tell if Kaiba had been giving us some privacy or if he'd simply been uninterested in our conversation.

"That's really rude," Yugi said to him, pointing at my title.

Kaiba shrugged. "I wasn't trying to be polite."

He looked me straight in the eye as he said that. There was a slight tension to his figure. I wondered if it was habitual. The last time we'd met, both of us had ended up in the hospital. I was the elder by far – an old man by now – but I had recovered first.

"How were you able to access the NPC function?" he asked. Unlike my grandson, Kaiba was still armed.

"I knew Anzu, Jounouchi, and Honda would figure something out!" Yugi said.

"We had help from Pegasus," I said.

"What?" Kaiba yelled.

"Mokuba gave Jounouchi and Anzu your program and all the access codes. Pegasus figured out what you were doing and how to hook us in with the NPC functions."

"They gave my top secret program to Pegasus? Were they so deluded by their own friendship speeches that they thought Pegasus was _trustworthy?_ "

"Is it stupidity to recognize that people are capable of change?" I asked with a slightly taunting smile.

He took my gaze and held it with a much fiercer stare than mine. "It's stupid to assume it."

"Well, it worked out great," said Yugi.

"I'll look for Yami and Mokuba, if they come near my sites. I'll let them know the changes you've made," I said.

"Make sure you tell Mokuba it's safe to sleep. He can even lie down and eat in peace." Kaiba held up a GPS tracker. "Sometimes they stop moving. I can't tell if they're asleep or facing a new challenge, or…"

"I'll look for them. I'm sure they're fine," I said.

Yugi nodded, but Kaiba scowled and said, "If I didn't already know you're as ignorant as I am on that score, I'd be reassured by your meaningless assertion."

Despite his haughty tone, it struck me how young he was, as he stood there, arms folded across his chest, like a child rejecting any attempt at consolation. If I couldn't reassure him about his brother, I could at least ease his mind on another matter.

"Pegasus said to tell you that no one has realized you're gone. Kaiba Corporation's stock market value is slightly up from when you left."

He managed to nod and dismiss my comment at the same time.

"The NPCs only have a limited amount of time for any encounter and right now, we can't reappear at the same site until time has passed. I'll have to go soon. I love you," I told Yugi. "Look for the sign that activates my avatar. Jounouchi and Anzu's avatars are almost finished. They should be uploaded soon, and Honda's is close behind."

"This world must have a lot of caves," Yugi laughed.

"Each avatar is tied to a different location. Jounouchi's is a tumble of rocks, Anzu's is a spring or bubbling water," I said, repeating what I remembered of Pegasus' lecture.

"The hardware supporting your connection with the NPCs wasn't designed to stay on for long periods of time," Kaiba said.

"Can it hurt him?" Yugi asked, sounding alarmed for the first time since I'd seen him.

"No, but if the circuits get fried, they'll be unusable."

"I'll be careful. And I'll make sure the others know they can't stay on for too long. I'll look for Mokuba and… Yami, then sign off. I'll be back tomorrow."

"Don't worry about us, Jichan," Yugi said. "Each challenge is based on our overcoming our own fears and doubts. And that means we're going to win."

Involuntarily I glanced at Kaiba. It was frightening to think that my grandson's life might depend on whether the troubled young man standing before me could tame his inner demons. But Yugi was confident Kaiba could do just that.

I nodded to my grandson. "I have faith in you. I always have and I always will."

"I've promised to see that your grandson survives our association," Kaiba added.

Yugi rolled his eyes at Kaiba's words, but grinned. "See, Jichan… everything will be okay."

I looked at my grandson's cheerful face, at Kaiba's serious one. They were the same age.

"I trust you," I told them both.

"Thanks," Yugi said.

Kaiba snapped, "Trust me? I tried to kill you and your grandson. How the hell can you trust me? Has age or senility stolen your wits, old man?"

"Hey!" Yugi yelled. "My grandfather's awesome. How would you like it if someone insulted your…" he stopped short, possibly remembering that Kaiba was an orphan. "Insulted your brother," he finished.

"It's hard to forget when someone tries to kill you," I told Kaiba. "And even harder to forgive when it's not your own life, but your grandson's that's being threatened. But Yugi tells me that you're not the same boy who did those things."

"I'm not any kind of a boy," he said icily.

"Then I'm trusting you to be a man."

The first time we'd met, I'd written Kaiba off as just another spoiled, rich kid who didn't understand he couldn't buy everything he wanted. The second time I'd viewed him as a monster. Now that our paths had crossed for a third time, I wondered who this strange child was.

I sighed and turned back to my grandson. I only had a few seconds left. I hugged Yugi, hoping it would last us both until I saw him again.

* * *

_  
**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter, and as usual, making sure it makes sense.**   
_

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** If it's possible to have a platonic OTP, Sugoroku and Kaiba are mine. Sugoroku is the only character old enough to look at Kaiba and see a teenager. And considering the way he ate Jounouchi and his rebel without a cause attitude for breakfast, I think he'd take even Kaiba in stride. And as often as I pair Kaiba up, usually with Yami, what I think he needs at least as much – even though the time for it is almost past – is a caring adult who is willing to take a parental interest in his welfare.

Oddly enough, I think Sugoroku is also the only one equipped to understand what drives Kaiba and what his stressors are, because he's the only other character who's been responsible for raising a child.

And of course, I'm a sucker for the whole Blue Eyes White Dragon connection…

_Comments would be appreciated…_


	15. Force of the Breaker

**CHAPTER 15: FORCE OF THE BREAKER**

 _There's a tagline to an old radio show that's lingered long past the show's demise._

" _Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows."_

 **GOZABURO'S NARRATIVE**

We were playing a waiting game now. It hadn't been hard to turn Seto's game into a killing machine. All his endeavors carried the scent of death, of risk, of desperation at their core, especially this, his most deeply personal one of all. It hadn't taken much to coax it to the surface. It never did.

I had to concede that, for the moment, Zorc was a reasonably satisfactory ally. As ridiculous as it sounded, this world really did draw some of its strength from ancient artifacts – and our opponents had been obliging enough to carry the power supply in here with them.

Editing Seto's program had been time consuming; we'd had to work within the parameters of the game itself or risk oblivion if a careless delete caused the entire world to crash, taking us with it. But in the end we'd managed to turn Seto's virtual world into a penalty game – one he was playing by himself. This time I didn't have to risk losing to win. The game had put Seto and his crew in one category, and we'd been able to opt out, leaving his cohort as the only one that would face each challenge, as the only one that could be killed off…. while I stood safely in the background, ready to collect the spoils.

Seto's death would be a pleasure, but our goal was the virtual reality pods themselves. They were inaccessible now, locked until the end of the game. I frowned. It had been the first thing I'd tried to change. It would have been much simpler if we'd been able to take the pods and leave, stranding Seto and the rest here. But the game itself had stymied me. Like Seto himself, it would seem to bend to my will, then turn unexpectedly stubborn. That didn't matter. Once Seto and his crew had lost and died, the pods would be released; we'd be free to use them to escape to the world outside.

Or some of us would. There were four of us here: Zorc, his two henchmen and myself. (My son was too weak to count.) There were only three pods. The implication was clear.

So, for the moment, Seto wasn't my main concern. Studying Zorc and his crew was a better use of my time. I needed to know which one could be picked off most easily – or used to take down Zorc himself.

I'd discovered I could take any form I'd used as an avatar… including the monster from the virtual world I'd built to house the remains of my son. I had to be careful, I couldn't always hold it, the way my son was sometimes unable to keep his far less substantial form intact. I limited its use to the times I saw Zorc. In monster form we were the same height – and unlike him I could swell to cover the sky.

As usual, I found Zorc right away. The ease with which I could locate him reminded me again of how, subtly, the game sometimes defied me. It let me find Zorc. It prevented me for doing the same to Seto or the others.

Zorc had only one of his playmates with him this time – a tall one-eyed man. The shadow of a gold orb kept flickering in his empty eye socket, as if he remembered the golden object that had filled it so well that a vision of it remained even after three millennia. He bowed when he saw me, said something about prayers and left.

"If you were having a war council, you're one short. I don't see the white-haired kid anywhere," I observed.

Zorc called himself a games master – but I wouldn't advise him to play poker. It was easy to tell he'd lost track of the kid; he probably couldn't say when he'd seen him last.

"When an employee takes to disappearing, it usually means they're off plotting to take over," I added.

Zorc laughed. His face wasn't made to change expressions, but he looked relaxed. That was fine with me. When you're in enemy territory, seeding any field you come across with mines is always a good strategy. Even if it looks like it's not paying off, sooner or later one of them will explode in your opponent's face.

"I've held his loyalty for 3,000 years. I have something he desires more than life or death," Zorc said.

"And what would that be?" I asked casually.

"A trifle not worth mentioning," he said.

"Of course it isn't," I answered. We smiled at each other. "And the other one? Does he do anything but pray?" I added.

"He does what I want. He's bound to me… and to the Millennium Items. It's useful having mortals who have managed to escape mortality."

So, the tall priest was the weak link – or at least that was what Zorc wanted me to think. Either way, it was worth looking into.

It's not like I didn't have time on my hands.

I was sorry I couldn't watch each painful challenge, couldn't force Seto to witness my enjoyment of each new humiliation. But the game had been designed to be private. Once the challenges had started the players were impossible to track. It was another thing Seto had hardwired into the program.

I smiled. That paranoia had been my doing; it was one more proof my training had endured.

Something about this world made it easy to slide into memory. I remembered seeing the design for the airplane on Seto's computer. It was crude of course; Seto was thirteen. But it was a powerful, aerodynamic machine. Its silhouette would confuse an enemy's radar… by the time anyone realized it was there, it'd be too late. The only flaw was that the plane was unarmed. But that could be easily corrected.

It also wasn't the design Seto had turned into me as per his assignment. _That_ plane had been adequate; I'd had to grudgingly admit it satisfied my specs. But this one was brilliant. And if Seto had been as good at hiding his files as he was at airplane design, I would never have known it existed.

Despite his protests when he found out how his designs were being used, there'd never been a doubt that he'd continue. I didn't even have to threaten Mokuba. We both knew I could and that was enough. I rubbed it in his face anyway. I wanted Seto to hate his own powerlessness, to burn with humiliation at each fresh proof of his vulnerability – and this was the most effective method. That way, when he eventually sat on my side of the desk, he'd feel nothing but contempt for anyone weak enough to be under his thumb.

He had to learn that the only way to crush the memory of his own shame was to be the one inflicting the pain. That was the way to rule. Seto was naturally ruthless. Cruelty had to be taught.

But while Seto had tacitly agreed to continue, he'd turned it into a game of his own. He'd calibrate just how uninspired a product he could deliver, just how deeply he could hide the fatal flaws in each design, without drawing retribution down on his – or more to the point, Mokuba's – head.

I allowed it. His engineering skills were a perk. I was trying to teach strategy and this had proven an effective method, well worth whatever delays it had cost… delays Seto had paid for with his flesh and blood. But it was time for this stage of the game to end.

Seto had known something was up. I hadn't let him eat or sleep. I'd rationed his fluid intake. I wanted him tired, his body at its most vulnerable. I wasn't going to touch him, not tonight, but when the body's weak, the mind follows.

When he finally stumbled into his bedroom, the airplane design was on the monitor and I was waiting.

"These are my designs not yours. They're private," he said.

"I own you and every thought in your head. You have no privacy."

"You can't do this," he said, but for once his voice lacked conviction.

"I'll tell you what, boy… give me a real answer why turning this plane into a weapon bothers you so much, and we'll see."

This was why I'd kept him up for three days.

When he'd first arrived at the mansion, Seto had thought he was clever enough to keep his thoughts and emotions hidden. It was a childish conceit. It been all been there, easily exposed: his determination to be the best; his distrust of others, of life itself; his almost hidden desire for approval, for attention; his inexplicable devotion to his brother. Even now, everything he thought he'd so carefully guarded from view – at times from himself most of all – was just as easily laid bare before my gaze. It just took a little more effort to uncover as he got older.

And innocence is made for the taking. It was for his own good. He had to learn. The CEO of Kaiba Corporation could never be vulnerable; he could never care for anything weak enough to die.

"That plane is part of my soul," Seto finally said with a quiet desperation, too worn out to evade my question.

It was time for the kill.

"It is indeed. It's the part of your soul that's so eager to destroy it doesn't care who gets hurt in the fallout."

"No!" he screamed.

I could have left him with that last illusion. But he was more useful to me without it.

"The design was sitting there on your computer. You had to know I'd find it sooner or later. You wanted me to see it, to know just how good, how smart you are. You wanted to show me what you can do and you didn't think or care what happened next."

Seto prided himself on being able to keep eye contact, no matter what. I'd occasionally back-hand him across the face just to see if he could manage it. He usually did. Now, briefly, he looked away.

"No," he said. It wasn't thirst or a lack of sleep that had turned his voice to a hoarse whisper.

"All that speed, power and fury. It was irresistible, wasn't it?" I asked, my voice low, almost friendly. "All that anger given wings. It was a rush. Don't deny it. You couldn't help yourself. Did you even try? Or was it a game to you? For an instant you were as powerful as a fighter jet. But you forgot that the only game is the one played for life and death. And now people are going to die, because you wanted to play at being free."

His lips moved. If he was still saying "no" it was too low for me to hear.

"You're not going to pretend you're innocent, are you?"

In the instant before his eyes turned blank, I could see them fill with shame, like poison being poured into a well. Seto had bought what I was saying so easily. I would have punished him for making such an elementary mistake, but it served my purpose too well. It hadn't been the whole truth of course. There was a reason I'd kept him sleep deprived and half starved preparing for this moment; it made it harder for him to reason it all out. Because the truth didn't matter. What counted was that he believed me.

He spoke clearly this time.

"No."

I laughed and left him alone in the room. "Get some rest, boy. You've earned it."

I didn't need surveillance cameras to know: tired as Seto was, he was going to lie in that bed, with his eyes wide open until the sun rose.

I wondered if seeing his dead body would be as satisfying as that moment had been. It was strange that all our battles had come down to this waiting game. Once again I was puling strings he couldn't even see.

It's hard sometimes, playing a waiting game. But I had a lot to do before I could finally leave this world. I had a future to map out, a weapons empire to rebuild in my mind. My plans would keep me busy while I waited.

As would my memories.

* * *

.

 _  
**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter and for explaining what a firewall was and why it had absolutely nothing to do with this chapter.**   
_

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** One thing that makes Gozaburo both fascinating and disturbing for me is that I don't think he's a simple sadist, who tortures Seto for the pure pleasure of it. I actually think he's a complex sadist. Having seen the manga frame of him forcing Seto to study while holding his head up with a riding crop, while laughing, I'm totally on board with the idea this guy gets a real kick out of inflicting pain and anguish.

However I think a lot of things get mixed in there as well. Gozaburo's not looking solely to inflict pain – he's trying to break-down Seto's entire personality, and eliminate the part of it that's playful, that cares about other people and, possibly most importantly, the part that has a conscience. And whatever sleep deprivation, mental or physical abuse he inflicts is in pursuit of that goal. When you think about it, that's even a worse indictment. I also think there's a lot of anger mixed in there – at Seto for beating him in that chess game, at Seto for being there at all, for being both a replacement for and a reminder of his dead son.

 **Seto weapons note:** In the anime, it looks like Seto is 13 or 14 when Gozaburo first uses his designs to create weapons. He's young enough, at any rate, to still have had, as he puts it, some expectations from the man he was still, at that point, referring to as "father." But he's 16 when Gozaburo kills himself. I find it impossible to believe that in those two or three years, he never designed another weapon for Gozaburo.

Gozaburo had the perfect lever to use against Seto – Mokuba's safety and well-being, and I can't believe he would have refrained from using it – or that Seto would have resisted once he had. I think that could be one explanation why his role weighs on him so heavily, and why he talks about his adoptive father having sold his soul; because, although he wouldn't think of it in these terms, he bartered it for Mokuba's safety. But I also found the idea that Seto might have tried for a subltler form of resistance an interesting one to play with.

 **Writing process note:** A funny thing happened on the way to writing this chapter – Gozaburo crashed the party.

As I've discovered, (a bit too late) one of the hardest things about writing a story with this many characters and storylines is making sure they all get enough time to develop and sort of juggling them so that neither they nor the reader is left dangling off in limbo somewhere. Originally, I'd planned to sort of catch up on what was going on with Gozaburo and posse through a different character's narrative. But when I got closer to posting, the harder I looked at the chapter, the clunkier it looked, because there was basically this long part where all that was happening was one character saying what they thought Gozaburo was thinking and doing. It was one of those 'what was I thinking?' moments, because it occurred to me, that it would make more sense to hear Gozaburo narrating what he was thinking and feeling.

I had written a scene outlining that, but I hadn't been sure where to put it. So I stuck it on top of the chapter, but it seemed a little skimpy. And this flashback scene was pretty insistent it belonged there. Once I'd finished the narrative I realized that Gozaburo's narrative, like Gozaburo himself, didn't play well with others (lol). So short as this chapter is, I thought it needed to stand alone.

 _Comments would be adored…_


	16. Labyrinth of Nightmare

**CHAPTER 16: LABYRINTH OF NIGHTMARE**

 _Hercules strangled a pair of snakes in his cradle. Admittedly demi-gods are expected to be precocious. But maybe this is a trait most heroes – and even a few villains – share. For all that we think of Arthur as the legendary and bearded king of Camelot, he was a youth when he pulled the sword from the stone. And in a galaxy far, far away, no matter how little Darth Vader, in his powerful, wheezing glory, resembles a kid, it can be argued that Anakin Skywalker became a Sith in a fit of adolescent pique. Sometimes, no matter how ageless the character, no matter how timeless the story, the moment of grabbing power can come very early indeed._

 **KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

I stared at the GPS tracker. Mokuba's red dot was so close now. By tomorrow we'd be together. I'd managed to sleep a little. Yugi was right. We were going to catch up with Mokuba soon. I had to be alert.

That day in my office had been the first time Yugi and I had ever really talked. Yami was usually the one I saw, the one I argued with… the one I looked for. Yugi was right about one thing though – I did trust him. But I didn't understand him and the very act of trusting someone that incalculable made me wince. I didn't get why Yugi always acted like people were honest, like they were motivated by altruism of all things, when he wasn't stupid. I especially didn't get why it seemed to work out for him as often as it did. Yugi was shy and naive. He should have been weak. But he wasn't, and that made no sense either. And I'd learned the hard way – things you don't understand are likely to come back and blindside you.

I knew a challenge was coming. We were due. I wasn't surprised to see my Blue Eyes White Dragon rear up in front of me in attack mode. No, not mine… not exactly. It was the one I'd destroyed. I saw the marks of old scars on its wings and across its chest and legs where I'd ripped his card up. That wasn't the only difference. Its light had been dimmed; night trailed from its wings. Had the darkness that had lived inside of me infected it? Soon it was too dark to see anything but my damaged dragon. Yugi had been a little way behind me. He vanished as if a curtain of shadow had risen between us.

The Wicked Worm Beast might have been the one following me around like a rabid puppy, but this monster could kill me. Just as with the three in my deck, its power was evident, a challenge and a lure.

I had to give my game, or Gozaburo, or whoever had set this up, full credit. It was hard to imagine another adversary whose mere presence would have weighted me down with guilt, with the past, this easily. I looked at the scars criss-crossing its torso. They looked like chains; the dragon was bound by its own darkness.

The Blue Eyes White Dragon is a creature of light. I'd tried to steal that light; I'd changed its nature; I deserved whatever it did in retribution. But I wasn't going to give in that easily, even to justice. I couldn't. I had to find Mokuba. I was never forgetting him again.

At least one Blue Eyes White Dragon was always one of the seven duel monsters I could carry into each challenge. I called it to the field and waited to see if the dragon I'd just summoned would turn against me. Would it abandon me… would it go to its brother's side leaving me unprotected? I held my breath as I waited to see who it would attack – me or the scarred dragon drawing back for the kill.

"Am I worthy to wield you? Am I worthy to be Mokuba's brother?" I whispered to my Blue Eyes White Dragon just as I had when I'd summoned it in Noa's World.

My Blue Eyes White Dragon shone faintly, providing enough light for me to tell that the opposing dragon was equipped with Dragonic Attack. It added 500 attack points, making him stronger than my monster. The goblin doctor from DNA Surgery and his gremlin assistants had to be somewhere nearby, hidden in the darkness. He must have turned the dragons into warrior types; it was the only way for Dragonic Attack to boost a dragon's power. It made sense in a way – what are dragons if not warriors? But my mutilated dragon and his goblin helpers had forgotten: it's the cause that gives meaning to any battle.

Now, as I stared through the gloom at Dragonic Attack I saw the proof of my own complicity in the darkness facing me. The support dragon from the card had originally been as fluid as lightning charged water, as silverquick as ocean foam crashing to the shore, or rushing though a strait. Now it was the color of dead and rotting seaweed. Once it had matched the Blue Eyes White Dragon; they were both creatures of light. Now it was as perfectly paired with this new, corrupted version; their darknesses fed on each other.

I couldn't deny it was appropriate. At Death-T I'd surrendered to my own rage and hatred. Mokuba had risked his own life challenging Yami in a mad attempt to protect me. I'd looked on his face, turned trustingly to mine, and all I'd seen was a potential challenger, a new threat to be crushed under my heel. I'd forgotten everything, even why I'd begun this headlong pursuit of power in the first place.

Yami had once said that I needed to find something stronger than rage. I still had no idea what he was talking about. But there had to be an answer out there somewhere and if I wanted to help Mokuba I needed to find it. I'd carried Pot of Greed as one of my seven cards after seeing how easily I'd lost Mokuba… all because I hadn't been able to adapt when my pre-selected monsters failed. Now, with Pot of Greed I could pick any two cards from the data base. I just had to know which ones.

What was stronger than rage?

I could see my nemesis, the first Blue Eyes White Dragon I'd ever held in my hands, draw up its wings and prepare to attack. I didn't blame it for being angry… for hating me.

" _Welcome back. Did you really think you could run from your own nature? As with losing, the price for folly is death."_ I heard Gozaburo's voice. Was he here in the darkness watching me or was this just his ever-present voice in my head.

What was stronger than rage?

" _You disappoint me. You can't build anything lasting using anger and hate as a foundation."_

Great. Now I had Yami preaching at me. If I could see him, I'd tell him to shut the fuck up, no matter how pointless it is to yell at hallucinations. He was wrong, anyway. What did I have besides rage and hatred? It had damaged everything I touched. I thought of Mokuba building Death-T at my side, carrying out my orders for each deadly level. Just thinking about it I got angrier and angrier.

What was stronger than rage?

I thought about Yugi's grandfather. I'd tried to kill him at Death-T. Worse, I'd used him as a pawn to get to his grandson. He'd been furious at the time, gripped by an eerily familiar combination of rage and powerlessness. Gozaburo had been dead (after a fashion) for years, but I still remembered what it felt like to have that helpless anger seep into your bones and bond with the marrow. So did Sugoroku. I could see it in his eyes. But somehow, the memory wasn't eating the old man alive. He didn't seem to hate me or want revenge. That was so strange a concept, it startled me out of my growing rage. Why had he let go of his anger? Could he really have managed to forgive? Was that even possible? And the old man wasn't the only one. Yugi figured we were friends. And Yami had come to trust me. He'd said so. And he didn't lie.

" _You won't make the same mistake twice. Look past your anger. You can do it."_ Yami was still lecturing, but unexpectedly, he wasn't accusatory this time.

What was stronger than rage?

I thought of Mokuba. And for once, I didn't think about the ways I'd hurt him, the times I'd let him down. I just thought about him. About my brother. I saw him smile. I heard him say, _"I'll wait for you forever."_

Then I had it.

Light.

The light of the future.

It was stronger than anything. I believed that; it was what kept me going.

I chose Armored Glass. It reached my Blue Eyes White Dragon just before the enemy's attack, its reflective surface shinning laser bright. The trap card had negated Dragonic Attack's advantages; it had made the two dragons equal again. It was the best I could do. Light hadn't defeated rage, not for me – but it had matched it.

Both dragons were going to the graveyard. I refused to look away. It was my fault it had come to this. The opposing dragon didn't shatter as they collided. He was absorbed into the night surrounding us, disappearing into it. My own dragon got brighter in response, until she was a blinding pinpoint of light. I wasn't sure, looking at her, why I suddenly knew that it was a _her_. I squinted against her brightness. Then, like a dwarf star collapsing into a black hole, she was gone.

I gasped as if I had suddenly awakened from a dream, but I knew I hadn't been asleep. All the light had left with my dragon. The harder I tried to see, the more profound the darkness became. I was blind.

And deaf. I strained my ears to hear something, anything, but the only thing echoing in my ears was the faint remembered whoosh of my dragon's departure.

Someone shook me by the shoulder. It was a relief to have something to fight. I grabbed my unseen and unseeable opponent by the wrist, pivoted, rotated forward, and threw him over my shoulder. I could feel my assailant falling at my feet as I followed him to the ground. I was on top of him. I still couldn't hear, but I could feel the air rush out of his lungs as I landed. Whoever he was, he was smaller than I.

I raced through duel monsters in my mind. An Armed Ninja maybe… the game seemed full of them. In that case, he wouldn't stay down long. I'd better to finish the kill while I could. I slid my hands up his throat. I could feel vibrations against the curve of my palm. It wasn't steady enough for screams. Words then. But why would an Armed Ninja be talking to me? They never had before. And he wasn't fighting back. He was relaxed like he just assumed I wouldn't hurt him. That made me almost mad enough to strike back, to crush his windpipe with the knife edge of my hand.

I didn't though.

My own anger and impatience were screaming even more loudly than Gozaburo's voice had been a moment ago. I gasped, managing to keep enough control to stop myself from striking a fatal blow. This didn't add up. I had to buy myself some time. I slid my hands further up on my assailant's neck until I felt the ceratoid artery pulsing under my fingers. I pressed down hard enough to stop the flow of blood, knocking him out harmlessly. That bought me a few seconds.

I needed them.

I thought of beating Gozaburo… of Mokuba's pleading face in the instant before I'd started the Death Simulation Chamber. I'd been blind and deaf then too… just as I'd been every step of the way here.

This time before I did anything irrevocable, I wanted to know who my enemy was.

It wasn't Mokuba. I knew that, even blind. But it struck me that my opponent was his size. One hand was still at his throat, ready to apply pressure again if necessary. I reached up with the other and felt his long hair, the crazy stalks that seemed to go in all directions.

Oh shit.

It was Yugi.

After promising to see him safe, I'd been ready to kill him.

My senses returned with a rush. I saw his unconscious face below me; I heard his breathing. I was still on top of him. I moved to his side as his eyes fluttered open.

"Oh shit," I mumbled, shocked. "Light was stronger than rage after all."

"I guess we won," Yugi said, sitting up.

"Why did you grab me like that?" I snarled at him.

"I thought you were having a fit or something. You looked like you were in a duel but there weren't any monsters. I screamed your name, but it was like you couldn't hear me. Then suddenly, I was on Pegasus' tower all over again, with you standing on that ledge staring at something the rest of us couldn't see. Yami was in control. He was yelling and he was about to throw down the winning card. I was screaming at him, but I wasn't sure if he was going to listen. I was there, but I was invisible. I couldn't just stand by like I didn't exist, like all those penalty games Yami was in when I wasn't even there." Yugi shivered. "It was like being trapped inside my own body, not knowing if Yami was going to let me have control back before something awful happened. It's stupid… I know Yami's not like that, but I guess I just had to prove it to myself…" Yugi's voice trailed off.

"Don't you get it? I could have killed you!" I yelled.

"I trusted you."

I swear I have no idea how Yugi comes up with this stuff.

"Don't trust me again!"

"I do. And that's all there is to it," Yugi said. He looked around. "Well, if this was a challenge, we should be able to change something."

"You're taking this very casually," I noted, mildly annoyed. I didn't like things that made no sense, and that often described Yugi's attitude.

"We're okay, remember?" he said.

"That's not the point!" I yelled.

"What is the point then? What's more important? We won and now we get to change something."

I frowned. This was the problem with Yugi. It was surprisingly hard to argue with him.

Before I could come up with an answer, the scene changed. We'd been standing in a field. It vanished abruptly, or more accurately turned into the visitors' room at the Domino Orphanage.

I could list all the things this little scene wasn't. It wasn't a challenge. It was too soon for the game to generate a new one. It wasn't a hallucination. I was still aware that no matter what this looked like, I was still in my virtual world. But it wasn't just a memory either. It was too compelling; it drew me in too deeply even though I tried to distance myself.

I finally thought of something this scene was. It was boringly predictable.

I was sitting across the table from Gozaburo. I was smaller. Even seated, I had to look up at him. A chess board was between us. Mokuba was at my side. The orphanage director was standing behind me. It was hard to tell which would be more likely to make him piss on himself – if I won or if I didn't. I was about to find out. As soon as I made my next move, the game would be over.

"Checkmate," I said as I moved my queen.

It's considered polite to lay your king gently on his side when conceding a chess game. Pretending to be a good sport was just another nonsensical orphanage rule. Why would anyone be happy they lost?

Gozaburo must have agreed with me. His king crashed to the board. He looked at the orphanage director and snarled, "Draw up the papers for the brat and his brother. And arrange for a press conference. Since I'm taking in a pair of stray dogs, I might as well get my money's worth in public relations value for my altruism." He glared at me across the chess board. "You got what you wanted. Now it's my turn."

I knew what the staff reaction would have been if anyone but Gozaburo Kaiba had put on such a stunning display of bad manners. But I wasn't surprised to see the director bowing deferentially instead.

"Of course, Kaiba-sama," he said.

I laughed. The director turned to glare at me, all the suppressed anger he wouldn't turn on Gozaburo aimed in my direction.

"I always knew your speeches on being a good loser were just so much bullshit," I observed.

The director's hands curled into fists. I waited to be ordered to bed. It'd be worth missing dinner. I stared in shock as he bowed to me, almost as low as he had to my soon-to-be adoptive father. The director left the room without speaking. I laughed again.

"Stop that," Gozaburo ordered. "You think this is all a joke?"

"No." I gestured towards the door the director had just gone through. "But I'm going to like being your son. I always knew power made a good insulation. It's interesting seeing it in action."

Gozaburo moved quickly for such a large man. He came over to me and with a simple move, fast as a striking snake, grabbed my collar and lifted me so I was eye level with him. My feet dangled in the air. "Let me make one thing very clear – you haven't acquired any power yet. And you won't. Not until I've whipped you into shape to my satisfaction."

He dropped me back on my feet with a careless gesture. I made a point of keeping my gaze on his, of not swallowing, of not breathing in a milligram more air.

"Understood," I said.

Gozaburo swept out of the room. I smiled. I'd said I understood. I hadn't said that I agreed.

I turned to Mokuba. We were alone in the room. Mokuba tried to smile, but I wasn't fooled. He looked scared. I was proud of him though. He was only five. He couldn't control his facial expressions yet, but he didn't admit he was frightened out loud, not even to me.

"I knew you'd win," he said.

I nodded.

Mokuba paused. He stared at his feet. "He's mean," Mokuba finally said.

"Nice… mean… what's the difference? I'm the one in charge," I said.

I hadn't noticed it at the time, but Mokuba didn't just look scared, he looked worried as well. As I stared at Mokuba I felt the present pulling at me, reminding me that this wasn't really happening; I was seventeen, not ten.

The answer I gave him back then though is the one I'd still give today.

"Don't worry, Mokuba. It'll be okay. I'll take care of you no matter what. I promise."

"I love you, Nisama," he said. He'd never called me that – most honored big brother – before. I guess it was because I'd won.

The staff came in and hustled us off to pack. I felt myself get pulled back into the scene as the residential aides hurried us down the hall. But they didn't push us to speed the process along. Even their words were respectful. It was another indication how money and power change things.

When we got in our dorm room, the usual group of rejects crowded around us. Mokuba told them the news while I concentrated on fitting our toys into the going-away suitcase a staff member had given me.

"You are so lucky!" one of the losers said.

"It wasn't luck," I said as I continued packing. They'd never got that. Why did these idiots think, despite all evidence to the contrary, that luck was on their side? The trick was to be so good you'd win no matter what bad luck you ran into. People could talk all they wanted to about how it all came down to fate – that if we were meant to find the perfect home it would happen, even though everyone knew we were too old to get adopted and no one wanted a pair of brothers anyway. Destiny was for suckers. While other kids were waiting or hoping or praying for a home, I'd gotten me and Mokuba a mansion.

"Your brother always acts like he's better than the rest of us!" one of the jerks said, thrusting his face in front of Mokuba. I looked up and he took a step back, shaking his dirty, blond hair out of his eyes.

"He is," Mokuba said.

"Oh yeah?" the kid argued back, though I was pleased to note he kept his distance. "What the hell's so special about him?"

"His heart," Mokuba said firmly.

I smiled at Mokuba as I snapped the suitcase shut. I looked out the window and saw Gozaburo get into his limo. It pulled out of the driveway, but before I had time to worry, another one took its place. We went down the stairs. They were shabby like everything else here, covered with worn linoleum tiles. I bet the staircase at the mansion was made of marble. I'd stand at the top as often as I could so when people came in they'd have to look up at me.

Up close I could see that the limo had a big KC logo on the door. The driver stayed put, but a thin guy in a black suit got out of the passenger's side door in the front. He hurried to hold the door to the back open for us and bowed as we approached.

"Welcome, Seto-sama, Mokuba-sama," he said.

I nodded.

I didn't get in the car right away. There was something about how patiently the guy was waiting, like no matter what I did, he'd just stand there and take it. I was right. I looked around at the sky and the ground, at anything but the car. He didn't say a word. He didn't try to rush us or yell about how we were holding things up. It was clear – I was the one in charge, not him. I wanted to stand here forever, just because I could. I grinned, knowing no one was going to brush us off as if we were dirt ever again. We had power now, no matter what Gozaburo had said. It felt good.

Mokuba looked at the guy holding the door.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"It's Isono, Mokuba-sama," the man answered.

"You don't have to add 'sama' to my name. I'm just Mokuba," my brother said, obviously confused by the honorific.

"Not anymore," I snapped, annoyed that Mokuba was so ready to give back everything I'd worked for. We weren't "just" anything anymore. Names are power. I didn't have to remember Isono's name unless I felt like it, just like the director had never bothered to remember mine. Now my name had a "sama" at the end of it and no one was ever going to forget it. I grinned and finally got in the car. It smelled like new leather. The seats were softer than the chairs in the staff lounge. I liked being at the other end of this equation.

Mokuba followed me. Isono shut the door and got into the front seat. I sat with my back to the orphanage as the car drove off. I didn't turn around. Mokuba went on and on describing how the losers from the orphanage dorm kept hanging out the windows pointing at us and the car.

"All our dreams are coming true!" Mokuba screamed, hugging me. He was showing too much emotion; he'd have to watch that. But I was glad his earlier doubts had vanished.

"Do you think we're really going to build amusement parks when we get older?" he asked eagerly.

I thought about it. Gozaburo had made a name for himself donating money to orphanages. I didn't get why he did it, but now that I'd met him I was doubly sure it wasn't because he was a nice, cuddly kind of guy. Maybe he liked the publicity or maybe he got a kick out of pulling the wool over everyone's eyes by making them think he was something he wasn't. That was okay, because building an amusement park for poor kids would be even bigger and better press.

"I promise, Mokuba. We'll build those amusement parks we talked about, so kids can have a good time playing games. It'll have a Blue Eyes White Dragon roller coaster and all kinds of virtual games so they can forget they're going home to an orphanage. And it'll be free so they don't have to worry about money."

"I can't wait!" Mokuba said.

I looked at the two men in the front seat. I couldn't see their faces, but something in the tilt of Isono's head made me sure he was listening to every word. I pushed a button on the control panel on the door and watched as a soundproof pane of glass rose between us.

Isono had been in the background ever since… watching as I'd constructed Death-T… waiting as I'd razed my adoptive father's weapons factory and built a duel tower on its ruins.

This day, this moment when I'd sat in a limousine for the first time, had been the start of it all. I'd been so sure everything was falling into my grasp. And a lot of it had played out exactly the way I'd planned. I'd become the CEO of the new Kaiba Corporation. The plans for our latest Kaiba Land were on my desk waiting for my approval. But the limousine was also speeding me towards another, darker appointment – towards the day when I'd almost thrown it all away, towards the moment when I'd tried to kill Mokuba.

I stared at the tinted glass of the panel separating me from Isono, and felt the pull of the past dissolving. It was fitting that the amusement parks I'd designed bore the surname Gozaburo had bequeathed me. I was Kaiba now.

"Kaiba!"

I'd been slowly leaving the past. Abruptly now, the car shattered and disappeared. Yugi grabbed me. He really was a slow learner. I'd started to react before I'd realized it was him. I'd grabbed his wrist, pulled him forward by it, twisting it as I went. I'd already pivoted and started to throw him over my hip. Yugi squeaked. I managed to catch myself in mid motion, and jerked upwards as hard as I could, using Yugi's arm to pull him up rather than to force him to the ground. Yugi twisted around but managed to land on his feet. He stared at them for a moment, then looked around, clearly startled to be upright and unharmed.

I was pissed. He had some nerve grabbing me. The first time I could understand; it had been during a challenge; it was easy to get confused. But that excuse didn't fly now. Nobody got to push me around. It would have served him right if I'd dumped him on his ass, but I'd promised Yami that I'd protect Yugi and I was already in debt on that score.

I opened my mouth to berate Yugi for being so stupid when he said, "Never grab you without warning again – even if it looks like you're zoning out. Got it."

I shrugged, wondering how long it would take Yugi to forget again.

"At least I figured out what change to make…. Unhide codes!" I called.

It went quickly this time. Either practice was making me perfect or it was just that I was so damn sure what I needed to do next. Every single victory in my life had been so hard-won. I wasn't giving any more back. I grunted in satisfaction looking at the revised coding. I couldn't undo Gozaburo's handiwork. I'd never been able to. But I'd just insured he couldn't damage my program any further than he already had. Now, I was the only one that could make changes. Gozaburo had done his worst. From here on out, it was my turn to rewrite my own program – as far as I could.

* * *

 _  
**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter and helping me sort out what should go in which chapter.**   
_

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Even after years of writing and watching Yu-Gi-Oh!, sometimes it'll suddenly occur to me to wonder about something I'd never quite thought about before or to look at things from a slightly different angle. In the anime, during the tag team duel he fights alongside Yami against Lumos and Umbra on the roof of that glass building, Kaiba goes on this long riff about the meaning of power. One thing he says is that power means safety and security. Given how often Mokuba gets kidnapped, not to mention how often Kaiba himself has is soul sealed in playing cards or stone tablets, you'd think it might occur to him there's some flaws in this theory. But he holds on to it because at one point in his life this was totally true. Then I started thinking about what those first moments when he experienced power might have been like for Kaiba.

I hope the story is continuing to hold your interest. As usual, all comments are appreciated.


	17. The Lost Millennium

**CHAPTER 17: THE LOST MILLENNIUM**

 _If there's a hero in sight, can his mentor be far behind? Of all the archetypes in all the world, this one is the easiest to spot. From the original Mentor, the teacher who tutored Odysseus' son, Telemachus, to Gandalf and Frodo or Obi Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker, the pattern seems set: the wise older character guiding his younger charge on the path to self-discovery._

 _But surely there's no age limit teaching or learning? And if we all had to be as wise as Gandalf to have information worth sharing, the world would be a quieter place and many insights would go unheard._

 _And what of those other, darker mentors, who lead us on a journey to know ourselves, but whose motives are rarely aimed at our betterment… those reverse mentors who seek, not to give knowledge, but to twist it?_

 **NOA'S NARRATIVE**

I could always find my father, just like I always knew where Mokuba or Seto were – not that I'd visited Seto, at least not yet. I wasn't surprised my father was with Zorc and the others so much. They might have been temporary allies. But for all their protestations of solidarity, they didn't trust each other. My father considered Zorc a bigger threat than Seto by far. He was right. Zorc was pure evil and his companions were creepy beyond belief.

They were confident that the game – the penalty game as Zorc kept calling it – would kill Mokuba, Seto and the others and spring them from this virtual prison. They liked pulling the strings from a distance. I didn't. Not anymore. Dueling Seto and then Yami in my virtual world had been the first time I'd felt truly alive since the day I'd died.

The one thing neither Zorc nor my father mentioned: there were only three virtual reality pods, but four of them. The conclusion was unmistakable; one of them was getting left behind.

It was odd. I'd figured out that my father and the others couldn't move around the way I did; unlike me they were blind to the others' whereabouts. I wasn't sure why I could move around more easily than the others, why I was more in sync with the game and its players. Maybe it was because I was less substantial than the rest of them, more tied into the game itself to support my life. The white-haired kid was different too. He seemed to be able to zero in on Yami and Mokuba sometimes. He'd disappear and return without telling anyone where he'd been. I'd been keeping an eye on him. It didn't happen often though. It seemed to have something to do with those Millennium Items my father's new allies kept talking about.

I hadn't told my father that I could track the others. If he knew, it would make me more valuable to him – but only as a tool. I remembered when my father had first arrived in the virtual world he'd built for me. I'd been so lonely for so long, and then it'd been like we were a family again, working together to plot our revenge. I'd missed that: being his son, having him smile when he saw me… having the cruelty and scorn aimed at someone else.

But I was never going to be his heir again. Death had taken that from me. So had Seto. And even here, I was never getting it back. Besides… I knew if I told my father it would wind up with Mokuba getting hurt. That wasn't going to happen, not if I could prevent it. Mokuba was so vibrant, so warm, so alive. I wanted to make sure he stayed that way.

I found my father in mid-conversation with one of Zorc's henchmen – a tall guy with a missing eye. My father hadn't bothered learning his name. It was Akunadin. My father was acting like I wasn't there, but he didn't seem to mind my hanging around. I liked being with him.

"Everyone's got an agenda," my father was saying as I arrived. I wondered about that. I had only two items on mine. I wanted my father to love me. I wanted Mokuba to be safe. Only one of them was possible.

"Not everyone," Akunadin explained. "I had an agenda once, a list of all the things that were so important to me that my soul meant nothing in the balance. I have outlasted my agenda. Now all that remains is the payment due."

I'd never really heard him talk before. He was interesting. My father clearly didn't agree.

"What kind of payment is that?" he asked, sounding bored.

"Eternal servitude. All that's left are the Millennium Items, my oath and my master. I go where they will. I sold my soul to make my son the pharaoh. I succeeded. It was my seed that ruled Egypt. But there is always a price to be paid for defying destiny."

It was freaky how quietly he said that, like he'd had thousands of years to get used to the idea that his existence was empty. The scariest part was that I got where he was coming from. I shivered, glad for once that my father was ignoring me.

My father snorted. "So all you want to do is curl up and die?" he sneered.

"Rest would be pleasant," Akunadin agreed, as if he hadn't noticed my father's contempt. Or maybe it was that he had so much on his mind it didn't really touch him. "If it were possible I would rejoice. But I know all to well the harvest my actions – my betrayal of my pharaoh and the people under my care – will reap." His smile was sadder than most people's tears. "I have had millennia to ponder this question: is it better to know that you're damned, to understand how harshly you will be judged when you finally, after millennia of running reach the end of it all? Or is it better to be like you, with no idea of what you will face when you are called before Osiris? Enjoy your ignorance while it lasts."

My father grunted. He'd already lost interest in anything Akunadin had to say. All he'd wanted to do was to take Akunadin's measure, and with those words, he'd characterized him as a nonentity – too weak to pose a risk.

I wondered if Akunadin was right, though. After all, I was supposed to be dead – and we'd all been paying the price ever since.

I liked this world. The others didn't. They couldn't wait to get back outside. Zorc had already made plans: he was going to be worshipped or the world would suffer, would feel his wrath. My father was going to rebuild Kaiba Corporation as a weapons factory, bigger and deadlier than before. This place was an airport terminal to them, someplace to wait and pace the floor en route to somewhere better. It was different for me. I wasn't going anywhere and I didn't want to. This world felt alive. It had people in it. That made it better than the one my father had created for me, the one I thought I'd perfected. I shrugged aside a flare of resentment that Seto had beaten us – had beaten me – again.

Most of all, Mokuba was here. I wanted him to stay here with me forever, but I knew he didn't belong.

I'm not sure why I went to see Seto. Part of it was that when I saw Mokuba again, I wanted to be able to tell him that I'd seen his brother and he was okay. I waited until it was night and I was pretty sure Yugi would be asleep. It was just as well I wasn't expecting Seto to welcome me with open arms.

"I can't say I wanted to see you again," Seto said when I appeared in front of him. "But all things considered, I'm not surprised. I should have put up a sign: 'Vacancy. Freaks welcome!'"

"You did," I reminded him.

"Not intentionally."

I nodded. I thought of my father teaching me business strategy, reading "The Art of War" or talking about Nietzsche's theory of the Übermensch as I lay in bed at night waiting for sleep. I smiled.

"The law of unintended consequences…" I said. "I remember Father talking about that. He used to worry it would trip me up some day. It was a big deal to him. He must have warned you as well."

"Warned me? No," Seto answered curtly, barely snapping the three words out. His face was as hard and set as when I had turned him to stone.

I had spoken without thinking, but now my smile turned to a smirk, not needing to add words to taunt him. I liked being reminded of how much my father had hated Seto, how he had punished Seto for every day he wasn't me. It made me feel irreplaceable. My father might have adopted Seto, but Seto had never been his son. It was the one thing I had that he didn't.

"Why are you here?" Seto asked, managing to sound bored instead of hurt.

"Mokuba would want to know you're okay," I said.

Seto's smile turned as malicious as my own. His words cut as deeply.

"You don't know my brother as well as you think if you need to bring him a bribe. Then again, given how little reason he has to trust or like you, maybe your instinct to offer him a present to try to get him to give you the time of day is a good, if futile one. You tell me."

"It's not a bribe!" I yelled, unable to stop the words, even though I hated letting him see how badly he'd gotten to me.

"Are you sure?" he asked with a mocking smile.

"Look, I care about Mokuba. You can't take how I feel away from me."

"I didn't 'take' anything," he said icily. "I worked for it all. I earned it."

"This isn't about us. Mokuba's different. I'll do whatever I can now to make sure he gets out of this safely."

I'd expected another insult, but that silenced him instantly. He looked thoughtful, like he was actually listening to me instead of just searching my words for an opening to attack. We both wanted Mokuba's safety. It was the one thing that we had in common and it mattered more than all our differences. I could see Seto weighing what I'd said, trying to decide whether to believe me.

"You did help us escape from your virtual world," he said. "After trapping us there and brainwashing Mokuba in the first place, of course."

"I tried to keep Mokuba by my side. I was wrong, that's why I helped before. Now, I just want to make sure he's okay. He's… amazing. I meant it when I said that this isn't about me."

He didn't answer; that assessing look hadn't warmed a drop. It reminded me of my father, but with one crucial difference: my father would have been judging how he could use me; Seto was trying to decide whether to trust me.

I took a deep breath, knowing what I was about to do was irrevocable, knowing what my father would say if he knew.

"This isn't like my world. I'm not a player here; it's almost like I'm part of the game. As long as I don't choose to play, you can't touch me – but I can't challenge you directly, either. That's the way this world works now. Your VR pods brought you into this world, but the game is your opponent now. Everyone else can just stand by and wait for you to lose."

I kept my eyes fixed on him, waiting to how he reacted. He didn't. My father had trained him well. Or maybe Seto had always been like that; maybe that's what had made my father notice him in the first place.

"The first time, Gozaburo had to win a penalty game to stay in my body. He lost and was returned here," Seto said.

I nodded. I remembered my father leaving abruptly, and returning as furious as I'd ever seen him.

"But if this entire virtual world is one big penalty game, they've managed to circumvent that," he said, pacing as he thought. It was the first time I'd seen him show a need to find relief in movement. "And it fits the game's parameters," he went on. "It was first designed as an internal challenge."

"Penalty game? That's what that big, ugly guy, Zorc, keeps calling it," I blurted out.

That got a reaction – a frown.

"I knew it wouldn't take long for that Millennium Item bullshit to surface. If I had to pick the one thing I wanted running around in here even less that Gozaburo – or you – it'd be a demented character out of an obsolete myth." He paused again, then deliberately walked directly in front of me and focused on my face. "So they figure they'll wait for the game to kill us and then use the VR pods reserved for the winners to escape." He looked at me for confirmation.

I shrugged and gave half a nod. Seto didn't press me for any more details. I was relieved. I wanted to see that Mokuba was safe just like I'd promised… but it's not like I wanted to help Seto. And Gozaburo was still my father.

"You're wrong about Mokuba," Seto said suddenly. "It doesn't matter that you brainwashed him that time. God knows he's forgiven worse. He's decided you're his brother, and that's enough for him. He's loyal like that."

"Thank you," I said as I left. I agreed with Seto that made us even for my help. And I wondered: if Mokuba and I were brothers, what did that say about Seto and me?

* * *

 **YAMI'S NARRATIVE**

During the day, Mokuba was a blur of motion and sound… exclaiming over each change in the setting, dragging me to see each detail that reminded him of his brother or brought fresh proof of his Nisama's skill or imagination. His enthusiasm was contagious. The joy of feeling my body breathe in the flower scented air, of feeling it fill my lungs had not grown stale… the feel of the springy grass beneath my hand when we stopped to rest, the way it tickled my palm as I tried to press it down. Once our path led us through a grove of saplings. Mokuba pointed out proudly they would grow up to be the same trees as in the playground he barely remembered from before his parent's death. I idly pulled one backwards. It pushed back just as strongly, escaped my hold, and smacked me in the face. I laughed. I agreed with Mokuba. This world reminded me of Kaiba.

Mokuba threw himself into every challenge as if this was truly a game. It made his silence as I went to take the Millennium Ring out of my backpack even more noticeable. He dug a hole in the ground with the toe of his sneaker. The task seemed to absorb his attention. He looked up when he finished.

"Are you sure this is a good idea? Those things are weird," Mokuba finally said, pointing at my backpack.

"Isis told me the Millennium Items are mine by right. When we arrived here… when I was given this body, our belongings were divided. Yugi received the Puzzle, but I was the one carrying the backpack with the Millennium Items. There was a reason Yugi had the Puzzle. It enabled him to help you. I must have ended up with the Items by design as well."

Mokuba snorted. "I know what my brother would say about that if he was here."

I laughed. "It wouldn't matter. I need to find my memories, Mokuba."

"Why?" Mokuba asked.

"I need to know if what Bakura said was true. I need to know if I destroyed a village and everyone in it. I need to know if I enjoyed it, if I felt triumphant, if I stood there smiling like an avenging angel watching the flames."

"Why the hell are you listening to anything that psycho said?"

"Because I don't have anything else. Because I remember standing here, after being reborn, smiling as I watched people get consumed by the penalty games I forced on them. I need to know what kind of person I am."

"Getting your memories back won't tell you who you are. They can only tell you who you _were_ , and that's different. Look at my brother and me. Are we who our worst memories say we are?" Mokuba cried out. He'd been bothered earlier. Now he looked ready to cry.

"No! Of course not! But…" I paused, trying to think of a way to explain. I realized suddenly how often Yugi had accepted my decisions without question. "You and your brother have had a chance to try and come to terms with your worst moments. That's important to you, isn't it?"

He nodded.

"How can I do the same if I don't even know what they are?" I asked.

He frowned at that, but nodded again.

"Yeah," he agreed.

"I'm done letting this game throw whatever it wants at us. It's time to get some answers," I said.

I was surprised to see Mokuba grinning at me. "Man, do you sound just like my brother," he said.

I bit back a smile. It made sense that Seto Kaiba's brother would recognize and accept compulsion when he saw it.

"How do you think it all works?" he asked.

"Bakura said that if I focused on the Millennium Items they would lead me to my memories. I'll start with his," I announced as I pulled out the Ring. I sat down and stared at it, trying to block everything else out of my mind.

"What do you think's going to happen? How long will it take…" Mokuba's voice faded away.

I was in a tomb. It was cold. The air prickled against my skin, raised the fine vestigial hairs on my arms and legs. A ghostly breath brushed the back of my neck. It was an unpleasant, disturbing sensation, but it was real, it was mine and I reveled even in the clammy feel of my skin. I'd come into this game to find my past but the sensations of the present, the feel of the air on my skin, the harshness of each sharply drawn breath, refused to release their hold.

I looked around the hushed, darkened chamber. There were two figures in front of me. Mokuba had disappeared. Bakura's silver-white hair shone in the dim light. So did the scar that disfigured his cheek. I looked from Bakura to the man holding the torch. The second man was tall and strongly built. His eyes were a frosty blue, as if the ice in them never melted. They almost matched the blue on the waistband of his white robes. He looked familiar despite the ancient garb, the golden breastplate and bracelets. As I stared at him I realized I was looking at my Black Magician brought to life.

"You will pay for the desecration of the pharaoh's father's resting place!" he yelled.

"Pay? Don't make me laugh! Has anyone paid for the desecration of _my_ father's body?" Bakura answered.

"You dare to compare yourself – a thief and the child of thieves – to the pharaoh? He is akin to the gods!"

"I've run across a couple of gods myself lately. You ever meet Zorc?"

The Black Magician made a sign to ward off malevolence and said sternly, "You would draw your power from pure evil?"

"It doesn't make my mission any the less holy," Bakura answered.

"And what mission is that?" the Black Magician asked.

"Revenge," Bakura said, as he begun his attack.

I'd seen this before in my visions and my dreams: duel monsters forming themselves out of stone or even thin air.

"Stop!" I yelled at Bakura. "Your fight is with me!"

But just as in the first challenge I'd faced with Mokuba, once again I was invisible and unheard.

Bakura's monster was a giant winged stone warrior. He hung in the air. Instead of legs, his body tapered to a giant snake's form, finally ending in a fanged mouth. My Black Magician's avatar was a twin Black Magician, dressed in his familiar black and purple robe and cowl.

This wasn't a duel the way I'd grown to think of them in Domino. Oddly it was more like the contests in this game – a fast, furious brawl where the monsters were free to attack the players directly. And just like in this virtual world, our lives were tied to the outcome… and losing meant death.

I screamed a warning my Black Magician didn't hear as he stepped backwards, activating a trap. He avoiding the spinning blades that swept from side to side, but that moment of distraction was fatal, as Bakura's monster attacked him directly.

It was over quickly. I felt like a voyeur, watching, unseen, as my Black Magician fought for – and lost – his life, never knowing he wasn't dying alone. But then he turned and looked into my eyes, as though I'd suddenly become visible, at least to him.

"Pharaoh, I will always be your loyal servant," he said to me.

As he crumpled to the floor, I mourned the loss of a friend I didn't remember. The shadowy form of the Black Magician, now attired in purple and black and wielding his staff, rose from the body on the ground. He turned to me once more and gave me the impish smile I remembered from so many duels, the smile that always looked so out of place on his serious face. He disappeared. I felt my own consciousness waver, then start to dissolve. It was peaceful, sinking into this serene blackness.

"Yami! Yami!"

Yami? Darkness? It was _dark_ here. And peaceful. Why was this small, insistent voice disturbing me? Why did I feel like I should remember it?

"Yami! Wake up!"

Yami? Was that a name? Was that _my_ name? I felt the voice and the name it called tug at me. Although the voice was yelling "darkness" over and over, it pulled me towards the light. I felt a shock of cold water hit my face. I gasped and sat up. Mokuba was kneeling besides me. Aqua Spirit was standing next to him. On the card she looked like a young girl. In person, she was too delicate and ethereal to be human. Her sheer dress billowed around her as if she was still underwater. Her smile turned mischievous as she blew me a kiss. A large drop of water, as big as one of the water balloons Jounouchi liked to drop off of the school roof, floated from her hands, then hit me square in the face, drenching me all over again. She giggled and disappeared.

"I thought you were dead!" Mokuba yelled.

"Dead? No," I said, although I would have had a harder time describing just what _had_ happened.

"You were just laying there. You weren't even moving. For a minute, everything got confused. I thought you were my brother. I thought he'd killed himself and it was just me, forever. I was afraid to touch him, like if I did it would all become real. Then I shook your shoulder, and suddenly you weren't my brother anymore. But you didn't wake up. I could hear you breathing though…" He paused then said, "Throwing water always works on me when I can't get up in the morning, so I figured…" He gulped and said, "Never mind that! What the hell happened?"

"I saw my Black Magician. He wasn't a duel monster though. Not at first. He became one. I saw him die in a battle with Bakura. He gave up his life for me. He was fearless." I shook my head trying to hold on to everything I'd seen. "He was my friend. I will not believe I could have been evil and still have held such a man's loyalty."

I heard angry laughter as Bakura appeared in front of us. He hadn't changed in 3,000 years. I thought of Kaiba and wondered if he had a point – perhaps it was neither healthy nor wise to remain so firmly grounded in the past.

"Why not? Because he was loyal to you? He wasn't your friend, pharaoh. You didn't have friends. You had servants who lived to do your bidding. If you had ordered him to smother an infant against its mother's breast he would have done it just as faithfully… and as self righteously."

I thought of my Black Magician's smile. I couldn't deny that Bakura had managed to replant a seed of doubt in my mind, about myself at least, but there was one thing I was sure of.

"He was my friend," I repeated.

"What the hell are you doing here again?" Mokuba interrupted.

"I can feel when the Millennium Items are put into play. You followed my advice, didn't you?" he said, turning to me. "Just like a puppet on a string."

"I'm no one's puppet," I said sharply.

"That's why I hate you. You're above that aren't you? But you don't care what happens to those too far beneath your notice…"

I couldn't answer him. That wasn't true – at least it wasn't true now. But I didn't know the man he seemed to remember.

"My brother says the only person who can turn you into a pawn is yourself – if you're too weak to stand on your own," Mokuba said challengingly.

Bakura took a step towards Mokuba. His hand moved as if he was going to summon a monster, but he checked his action.

Mokuba looked at him intently. I'd forgotten… he not only had his brother's tenacity, but his killer instinct.

"You can say you're not a pawn, but you're taking orders from someone, aren't you. It's that Zorc guy, isn't it? You want to attack but you're standing here like a wimp because someone's holding the leash." Mokuba laughed. I'd never realized that he shared his brother's knack for making enemies. "So you tell me, how's that different from being his pet?"

Bakura growled, "I serve only the gods I chose."

"You chose poorly. You chose revenge. You chose to serve evil," I said.

"My cause…" he started.

"Does not justify murder," I said.

"Not murder – retribution. Killing does not become justice merely because it is done in the pharaoh's name." Bakura's form flickered. He turned to Mokuba. "My leaving you alive, my choosing not to attack isn't a weakness. It's strategy."

Mokuba snorted. "You go on telling yourself words mean something different just because you're the one saying them. If you kill someone it's murder. And if you're running away, it's not strategy, it's cowardice."

But Mokuba couldn't bait Bakura further. He crossed his arms and said scornfully, "I liked you better when you were a soulless puppet. At least you didn't interrupt your betters. I understand why the high priest tolerates you. He has no memories and assumes the responsibilities of kinship." The tomb robber turned to me. "But you and the fool with his hair cut like a ship's prow… what do you see in this repulsive brat? Something small, obnoxious and needy like a younger brother should be? Someone who'll look up to you no matter how often you fall short? Someone who'll believe you'll keep them safe no matter how impossible a task that is? I had all that once. I know the lure, but I refuse to accept substitutions."

I summoned my Black Magician. I wanted to see if I could goad Bakura into the attack he so clearly wanted.

But Bakura laughed when he saw my Black Magician. "I've beaten him before," he said as he disappeared.

"What the hell was going on with him?" Mokuba asked.

"I'm not sure. I wonder what he meant by saying he wouldn't accept substitutes. It must tie into his family. At least he inadvertently confirmed something. He can only find us if a challenge draws on the Millennium Items for power or if I'm using them directly."

Mokuba nodded. "Was he talking about Honda… you know when he was insulting me?"

"Honda rescued your body back at Duelists Kingdom. He said that Bakura helped him. We were never sure which Bakura it'd been."

"Oh…" Mokuba blushed. "I didn't know. I guess I should have thanked Honda."

I clapped him on the shoulder. "You still can – just as soon as we win this game."

* * *

 _  
**Thanks to Bnomiko, not just for editing, but also for listening.**   
_

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I was surprised to find out that the word "Mentor" comes from a character in the Odyssey who was actually named Mentor. That's sort of like finding out that the X-Ray machine was named after a guy named X-Ray (lol). Anyway, one thing that stuck out for me was how much the characters, gor good or bad, really do influence each other, whether it's Yami and Kaiba pushing and challenging each other, Yugi influencing Yami to be more merciful, or Pegasus making Yami question his actions or Gozaburo teaching a young Seto that losing equals death.

 _Comments would be appreciated…_


	18. Struggle of Chaos

**Gaming Note:** NPC stands for Non-Player Character.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 18: STRUGGLE OF CHAOS**

 _How many people hear the word "test" and think of Algebra? But tests come in many forms – not all of them mathematical. Dorothy faces off against grumpy trees and cowardly lions… her ability to tell friend from foe an even more valuable attribute as she skips off down the yellow brick road than her ridiculously sturdy leg muscles and unfallen arches._

 _But, as the Scarecrow discovered, when faced with a poppy-filled field and snoring companions, some tests, even non-algebraic ones, are perilously easy to flunk or – at the very least – be put aside for another day._

 **KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

We passed another cave. This one was harder to spot. It was half buried underground and the entrance was covered by a fallen tree. Sugoroku appeared as soon as we touched his summoning rune anyway. He must have been waiting. He told us that Mokuba and Yami were safe. They'd walked right past one of Sugoroku's locations without realizing he was there. But Sugoroku had seen them – and given that Mokuba and Yami had looked rested and alert, he was pretty sure that they'd figured out they could sleep without worrying a challenge would start. It was all I needed to know. I was grateful for the news, but I hated being on the receiving end of so many favors, especially when I didn't understand why they were being offered in the first place.

That wasn't all the old man had to say, of course, but I wasn't the one he'd come to see. He latched on to Yugi. I wouldn't have thought it was possible to laugh, sob and babble all at the same time, but they managed it. I stood off on one side trying to ignore them. It wasn't difficult despite the noise. Any conversation with that much hugging in it was bound to be a boring one. It was weird though, the way Yugi and Sugoroku looked alike. It made them almost interesting to watch.

I caught the old guy mentioning Yami's name. I was willing to bet that Sugoroku had known about Yami from the beginning. As with his grandson, the clueless routine was just an act. Besides he would have had to have been blind not to have noticed the difference.

It was hard to believe that Yugi had been part of all those times Yami and I had dueled. I'd never been aware of anyone else. Whether we'd been squaring off against each other or partnered together, Yami had been unmistakable. He'd face me full on… spine stiff, shoulders bent slightly back, hips thrust slightly forward, a challenge in every line of his body.

Even his hands as he drew his cards – as he summoned each monster with a flick of his wrist – gave him away. I swallowed, remembering his finger skimming across my cheek then down my neck when we'd first arrived here. His touch had been unexpectedly gentle. I'd had to control the impulse to shiver nonetheless. Yami had moved slowly, brushing my skin too lightly to leave an impression – except in memory. The finger itself had been lightly calloused, slightly rough, the outer sign of an inner strength. It wasn't hard to imagine Yami wielding a sword, his fingers sure as he gripped the hilt, or clutching the reins of a horse, his heels digging into its flanks as he urged it onwards, power and pride in each shared movement of horse and rider.

I'd almost forgotten Sugoroku was here, when the word "son" caught my attention. I shook the image of Yami, his face flushed, his head thrusting slightly forward as he leaned in over the neck of his mount, out of my mind… bothered that it had been there so vividly in the first place.

I refocused on the word that had interrupted my… thoughts.

"Son."

It was incongruous. The old man had always referred to Yugi as his _grand_ son before. I turned to look at him.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ignore you, and you're a bit too tall to overlook. I got distracted," he said to me.

I shrugged, unsure of how or why I'd become part of their conversation. I didn't mind Sugoroku's honest indifference to anything besides Yugi's welfare. I preferred it to a pretense of concern.

"So how are you, son?" he asked.

I realized he was talking to me. He obviously felt obliged to engage me in meaningless small talk, but that didn't mean I had to reciprocate. I rolled my eyes and turned away again, hoping he'd take the hint and shut up, or at least go back to boring his grandson with stupid questions instead of me.

"I've been worried about you as well," he added.

I snorted. "You'd be better off worrying about your grandson. I can take care of myself. He's the one that got knocked out and almost choked to death. You should have raised him better than to grab people when they don't expect it – especially me."

The old man's face darkened with anger. I grinned. That would make it clear how I felt about being lied to.

"Kaiba!" Yugi yelled. "Don't scare my grandfather like that. It's not funny!"

I shrugged again. I felt towards Sugoroku like I had towards all those nameless nonentities at the orphanage, who had been only too ready to adopt me without a second thought – until they'd learned that Mokuba came along with the deal. I'd sit there trying to keep from smashing something (preferably their faces) while they told me that I shouldn't let Mokuba hold me back, while they pretended they were saying this shit because they actually cared about me when all they wanted was a slightly undersized, breathing trophy. And every single one of them had asked how I was. They hadn't meant it any more than Sugoroku did.

"Stay out of it, Yugi. This is between me and him," I said, keeping my eyes trained on the old man.

"You're talking about my grandfather!" Yugi yelled.

But as I looked at Sugoroku my grin faded. I could see him reining in his temper… and I couldn't quite decipher the expression that replaced it. He stared at me assessingly, eyes narrowed. It made him look, not like his grandson, but like Yami. I wondered what he was seeing, what had driven out his anger. I'd goaded him into a reaction, but after that first, satisfying flash of rage, it hadn't been the one I'd expected. That too was like Yami.

"This isn't a fight. I didn't attack you – but you reacted as though I had," Sugoroku said.

"You think I felt attacked? Don't flatter yourself, old man. You're an annoyance. I'd react the same way to anyone who got past my spam filters."

We stared at each other a little longer. I've never minded uncomfortable silences as long as I'm the one creating them. Actually, I counted it as an accomplishment that I'd managed to shut both Yugi and his grandfather up. I wasn't surprised though that Yugi spoke first.

"It didn't happen like he said at all," Yugi puffed at his grandfather.

Sugoroku smiled at Yugi. "I know," he said and hugged him again. He looked at me over Yugi's shoulder, his face half hidden by Yugi's hair. "I'd like to know what happened just now, but perhaps you're right… we don't know each other well enough yet."

"You can drop the act. It's boring," I told him.

His eyes widened. He opened his mouth, but before he got a chance to frame the questions hanging over his face, he disappeared. The sky darkened.

"What happened to Jichan?" Yugi yelled.

"He's okay. A challenge is coming. NPCs automatically disappear."

"Get him back!" Yugi shrieked, his voice rising even higher than usual. I stared at him. Yugi's face was red and he looked more upset than I'd ever seen him. I didn't answer at first. Then I realized that unconsciously I'd been waiting for Yami to appear and take over.

"I can't," I said. "He didn't disappear. His avatar did. He's in the KC computer lab, remember?"

"I know that! What do you mean you can't do anything? You're not even trying!" Yugi's eyes were filling with tears. That didn't make him a pushover though. Mokuba had worn this expression more times than I wanted to remember. Those were tears of frustrated anger and determination.

"What the fuck do you mean, how do I know? I'm the one that designed this game in the first place. Try thinking. It's called a NON Player Character for a reason," I snapped back at him.

Yugi frowned then shook off my words like they didn't matter since they weren't what he wanted to hear.

"Even if you can't do anything right now, can you fix it? Like if we win another challenge?" he asked.

He still didn't get it.

"It's not a matter of 'fixing' anything," I said, annoyed that he assumed just because he didn't like the way the game was set up that meant something was broken. "Players have to face each challenge without outside help. It'd take away all meaning otherwise."

"I hate this stupid game!" he yelled.

"I didn't invite you or Yami or your precious grandfather in here. You all insisted. So stop whining when it's not all sunshine and puppies or whatever the hell you were expecting."

"You think it's okay that people just disappear? What's wrong with you?"

I snorted. "You talk about friendship a lot, Yugi. But it's only as long as everyone buys into your overly idealistic idea of how the world should work. But this is my world, and it's how you face things when your back's to the wall and there's no ready made cheering section to bail you out that counts."

Yugi frowned. "Is that what you think? That I've never had to face things on my own?"

A few minutes ago I'd seen Sugoroku bite back his own anger. Now Yugi did the same.

He paused, then said quietly, "In a way you're right. I've always had Jichan in my corner, and Anzu's been my friend forever. But that doesn't make me weaker – just different." He paused again. Before I could answer he said, "I didn't think about how things look to you." He took a deep breath and added, "Just explain to me why you can't rewrite it."

"The game's original parameters are still in place. They can't be changed. Not by Gozaburo. Not even by me. You were glad of that when it worked to our advantage. There's no point whining about it now just because it's taken you this long to realize that we're stuck having to live with the game's constraints as well."

I waited for Yugi to continue arguing, but he nodded. "Yeah, you're right. Does my grandpa know why his avatar got ejected from the game?"

"I assume Pegasus must have told him."

"I knew it was going to be dangerous for me or for Yami. But this is different. Jichan's old. He's worried enough about me without disappearing. I just hope this is over soon."

"Yeah, this challenge is taking its own damn sweet time getting here," I said.

"Does that mean anything?" he asked.

The darkness had finally started to condense, to coalese into shape and form. Good. It wouldn't be long now. There was a quality to it that was familiar.

"Yeah," I said. "It means we can relax. It's just the Wicked Worm Beast."

I called in my katana so I could kill him quickly when he finally finished materializing. It was annoying to be haunted by a monster I'd never used for more than a sacrifice.

But I was wrong. The darkness stopped growing, the number of limbs shrunk to four: two arms, two legs. It was humanoid. I grimaced as I saw the perfectly tailored purple suit, the lank silver-gold hair, the malicious grin. I hadn't wanted the Wicked Worm Beast, but I didn't consider the Witty Phantom to be an improvement.

"Why you?" I asked.

"Such a philosophical question from such a practical child. Do you expect me to do your thinking for you? It's your game. Wouldn't it be more useful if you asked yourself why I'm here?"

"You've backed the losing side before. And this time you forgot to tie me up. Will you shatter when I slice you to pieces, or bleed?" I asked.

He laughed. "I'll do whatever you've designed me to do. Bleed I imagine. Much more satisfying for you. But I didn't come to fight. I'm just here because it's amusing to watch you flail helplessly. You've taken on a much bigger opponent than me. Haven't you figured that out yet? Tsk… tsk… and you're supposed to be a genius."

He didn't seem to be an immediate threat, but I wasn't forgetting past history either. The Big Five had used him as my jailor. He'd been pretty happy with the role. I brought my katana slightly forward.

He sighed theatrically, sounding remarkably like Pegasus. That wasn't a recommendation, either.

"Always so eager to attack. I suppose I'd better return your little playmate, since you seem to need something to eviscerate and I'd rather it wasn't me."

This time the Wicked Worm Beast didn't disappoint. If I was given to gratuitous displays of emotion I would have sobbed with relief as my blade slipped through the soft flesh of his torso. My frustration and anger gushed out on a tide of his blood. I swung the blade again, separating his head from the shoulders, slipping neatly through the vertebrae. He fell at my feet.

The exhilaration of the fight vanished. I'd killed the Wicked Worm Beast again. It meant nothing. I was tired of it not meaning anything.

Sugoroku reappeared. He took in the hacked up remains of the Wicked Worm Beast, my bloody weapon and hands. I was in a midnight blue coat; my shirt and pants were black. It helped hide the blood. They cleaned and repaired themselves anyway, just like in a real video game.

"How are you? How are you… both? Are you… two… all right?" he asked.

Yugi nodded.

Something in careful way Sugoroku said that set my teeth on edge all over again.

"You don't have to keep doing that. It's boring," I said.

"What?" he asked.

"Making sure you include me in your questions. I already told you I'd promised Yami to see that Yugi made it back to him in one piece."

Sugoroku sighed. "I think you're both capable of taking care of yourselves – and each other. That doesn't mean I won't worry."

"Please don't, Jichan. We're fine." Yugi looked down. The Wicked Worm Beast's head had rolled against his foot. "Uh… it's a little hard to explain…"

"NPCs disappear during each challenge," I said.

"Pegasus told me. What happened to you both?"

"Nothing. This wasn't even a real challenge. It was just the Wicked Worm Beast. He keeps popping up randomly and I can't get rid of him," I said.

"That sounds pretty challenging to me," Sugoroku answered. He looked amused.

"It isn't a challenge. I'll prove it to you. Unhide codes!" I yelled. I waited a moment. "See… nothing happened. If this was a challenge the codes would have appeared and I could change something. I can't. Ergo, no challenge."

"I thought that only happened if you won?" Sugoroku said. I distrusted the mildness in his voice.

"Are you blind or crazy, old man?" I kicked the Wicked Worm Beast's torso. "Are you saying I _lost_ this fight? Look at him!"

"But the Wicked Work Beast didn't really lose either. I mean, he'll be back," Yugi said thoughtfully.

"I know," I growled. "It's a stupid computer glitch."

Yugi and his grandfather exchanged identical glances. Sugoroku shook his head.

"What?" I snapped.

"I think, like its designer, this game has hidden depths," Sugoroku said, and that assessing look was back on his face.

"Spare me the fortune cookie reflections," I replied.

"You talk about power endlessly. But this game is about strength," Sugoroku said.

I snorted. "Yeah, like there's a difference between the two."

"I think there is. Tell me, child… your adoptive father was a powerful man. Would you call him a strong one as well?"

Was everyone in this damn world, going to try and tick me off by calling me a child? I would have insulted Sugoroku in return, but that would have meant admitting I was trying to deflect his question.

And I had no idea how to answer it.

 **NOA'S NARRATIVE**

Most people ask themselves what their role in life is… why they're up and walking around, why they're here, wherever here is. It's just that most people ask themselves those things while they're still alive. I never asked myself those questions back then. I was a kid, and besides, I knew what all the answers were. I was my father's heir. My role was to make him proud, to carry on the Kaiba name after him. My role was to be everything he wanted.

Seto took that from me, without even knowing I was there. He'd won, without even knowing we'd been competing. He was supposed to be an empty vessel, a way to let me live again. Instead he's been the one to cost me the one thing I'd left to lose – my father's attention.

I'd kidnapped Mokuba just to hurt Seto, back when I'd ruled a virtual world of my own. But then, when I'd gotten to know Mokuba, I wanted him to like me, to see that I'd be the better brother. But even when I'd brainwashed Mokuba, I still couldn't convince him. Not really. It's why I'd challenged Seto to a duel. I figured he'd be like my father; he'd cut his losses and Mokuba would see it and that would be that.

I'd been wrong. If Seto had just kept his head in our duel, he'd have realized that if he won, my hold on Mokuba would vanish. But Mokuba was all he cared about. He'd thrown away his chance to win, and in doing so, he'd beaten me all over again. I'd turned them both to stone. I'd taken my revenge.

Just like my father would have.

I still didn't think Seto deserved a brother like Mokuba. No one did. But he was the one Mokuba loved.

I'd gotten good at timing my entrances. I'd waited until nighttime. I remembered that Mokuba liked to take the first watch. Sure enough when I arrived Yami was asleep and Mokuba was standing guard. Mokuba's eyes lit up when he saw me. He came running over. I told myself he was eager for news of his brother – his real brother. Mokuba wasn't like that but I didn't want to get my hopes up that his smile was for me.

That made it even better when he yelled, "I'm so glad you're back. I was worried when you faded away like that! Why didn't you come back and let me know you were okay?"

"I'm fine. No more than fine. I feel great!" I said.

Hell, he could probably tell that by the shit-eating grin on my face.

"I saw your brother. He's fine. He's tracking you. He should be here by tomorrow," I told him right off the bat.

"Thank you," Mokuba sobbed. He went like he was going to hug me, then remembered I was too insubstantial. He shifted from one foot to another. "I was sure he was okay. Nisama can beat anything… but knowing that you've seen him for yourself…" He grinned. "I'm so glad you're getting to know each other. You're both awesome! This is great!"

"I'm glad I saw him too," I said. It wasn't quite a lie. I'd be glad to do anything that put a grin that big on his lips.

"You guys talked? What did he say?"

"Yeah, some. Mostly about you." Oddly enough, hiding the fact I thought his brother was a monumental asshole and I resented the hell out of him, did make me feel more in sync with Seto – because I had no doubt if Seto was here, he'd be thinking the same thing about me, and probably hiding it as well. It made for a strange fellowship, but a fellowship nonetheless.

"I knew you guys would get to like each other, if you'd just give it a chance!" he said triumphantly. "How long can you stay?" he asked.

"I just can't hold this shape for too long. But it's okay," I added quickly, seeing his smile start to falter. "I can get around a lot easier than the others."

"Is it hard for the others?" Mokuba asked worriedly. I hated reminding him. "Is that why they haven't…"

I nodded. "Don't worry. The others can't find you. Even my father."

He looked at me closely. "Are you okay?" he asked.

I didn't try to evade. This was Mokuba. I was safe with him.

"My father's so mad at me," I mumbled.

Mokuba shuddered. "Did he… do anything?" he asked cautiously.

"No. My father's never laid a hand on _me,_ " I said proudly.

Mokuba swallowed. He was probably thinking that his brother hadn't been so lucky. I bit my lip to keep from saying that his brother had been the one to set his sights on my father, not the other way around. I didn't want Mokuba to be mad at me, but I couldn't just let it go, either.

"I know what you want me to say. That my father's evil, that he's always been this way. But that's not who I remember."

"What's he mad about?" Mokuba asked. "The last virtual world? Or does he know you've seen us?"

"Neither. He's mad at me for dying, I think. Maybe he has a point. Everything would have been different. I just wanted to ride my bike. It was new. I didn't even look, not really. Other people were always paid to look out for me. I didn't see the car. It came around the corner so fast. Some teenagers were in it, about Seto's age."

"What happened to them?" Mokuba whispered.

I shook my head.

Mokuba went up to hug me, then dropped his hands when he realized he couldn't. "It's not your fault you died."

"I was careless. Your brother would have…"

"You're my brother too," he insisted.

I smiled at him. That almost made up for not getting hugged.

"What happened to your mom?" Mokuba asked. "There weren't even any pictures of her."

"She died soon after me." I didn't mention what I'd seen in the video footage my dad had paid to keep out of the news. She'd been found with an empty bottle of pills by her hand. I suppose, in a way, that was my fault too. "I don't remember her that well… she was pretty. I remember her all dressed up standing behind me with her hand on my shoulder as we greeted guests. She was so quiet, even when we were alone… well, alone except for the servants." For the first time I wondered if she'd been afraid of being spied on, or if she'd just been in a medicated haze. Her death seemed to point to the latter.

"My mom died when I was born. I don't remember her either," Mokuba said. "And my dad was always working. My whole life, it's been just me and Nisama."

I knew that, of course, but it was still nice to hear him telling me about it. I'd never gotten the difference between acquiring data and sharing a secret before. It was proof we really were friends, maybe even brothers like he kept insisting. I liked having a brother. Mokuba was never going to look at me the way he did at Seto, but I could take care of him too. I'd be the one to make sure they got out of here safely, just like a brother should. That would be an even bigger sacrifice than anything Seto had ever done. He'd taunted me that I didn't know about giving up everything for the people that are crucial to you. He'd boasted that made him stronger than me. Well, Seto was never going to be able to top this.

* * *

 _  
**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter and helping me navigate Kaiba complications.**   
_

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I think Kaiba would feel hurt seeing the closeness and unconditional love between Sugoroku and Yugi because he probably can barely remember ever having felt that kind of support. However, I don't think he'd be aware that what he was feeling was hurt or emptiness. I think it would translate in his mind very quickly into anger. Since that part of the chapter was told from Kaiba's point of view, showing that a character who would never recognize what he was feeling as being hurt, actually was experiencing that emotion was a bit tricky. I'd love to know if that came through.

Similarly, it's hard to have Yugi believably get into a fight, even with Kaiba (lol). But one thing I love about Yu-Gi-Oh! is that they give a certain amount of validity to different viewpoints – and I think while Yugi and Kaiba certainly have very different ways of looking at things, I wanted to show both as making sense given their different characters and experiences.

 _Comments would be adored…_


	19. Storm of Ragnarok

**CHAPTER 19: STORM OF RAGNAROK**

 _Is "Star Wars" the story of a brave band of rebels saving the galaxy from an evil empire – or the story of a boy searching for his father and ultimately, himself? Is "The Wizard of Oz" about four friends defeating a wicked witch and rescuing a city – or about a girl trying to find her way home? Or, more to the point, is Yu-Gi-Oh! about a group of somewhat inept teenagers saving the word on a regular basis – or about those same teenagers sorting out their lives and futures by flinging cards at their problems? Stories often have a dual nature… and sometimes the inner battles are the ones most fiercely fought._

 **YAMI'S NARRATIVE**

Mokuba spotted them first. He raced across the landscape towards the two figures, one tall and one short.

"Nisama!" he yelled as he reached them.

Kaiba's hug swept him off his feet.

I reached Yugi a moment later. For the first time I hugged him. It was what I'd been waiting to do for days. My hands were cocooned by the familiar wool of his school jacket; I had an identical one slung over my own shoulders. Could I feel his heart beating against mine or was that an illusion?

"How are you, partner?" I asked, aware that my words were stilted, inadequate to express my joy.

Yugi's answer came in a rush. "I'm great! It's wonderful seeing you! I knew we'd find each other! I missed you so much, Yami!"

"You're okay? Did you have any problems?" I asked. He looked happy and – unlike Kaiba – rested.

"Nothing we couldn't handle. You?" Yugi sounded more confident than I remembered.

"I saw a piece of my past," I told him, the reality of that experience hitting me all over again.

"You did? Wow! What happened?" Yugi asked.

"I saw the man who became my Black Magician. He was my friend." I paused, not sure how to explain how humbled I'd felt at seeing the depth of his loyalty, at witnessing his sacrifice. "The Spirit of the Ring killed him. He died defending me."

"I'm sorry the first thing you saw was so sad," Yugi said, hugging me again.

"The Spirit of the Ring – he still calls himself Bakura – came and taunted me. He's in this game too. Millennium Items are involved."

"Well, now that we're all together, we can take on anything!" Yugi said. "You're alive and in your own body, Yami. That must be an awesome adventure all on its own."

I nodded, once again unsure of what to say. I'd held Yugi closer than I'd ever been able to, but there was a shade of distance between us that had never been there before. In gaining the ability to hug Yugi, I'd lost the sense of being a part of him. I was looking at the world through my eyes, not his. In Domino, every time I'd taken over for Yugi it had been done in his defense. I'd emerge, senses already on alert, my eyes scanning the area, my mind evaluating its threats, every synapse tied to my mission of protecting Yugi. That mission remained but I was freer here. I was able to pause, to enjoy the landscape around us.

The setting was idyllic, perfect for our reunion – or for lulling the unwary into complacency. Herbs must have been mixed with the grass and weeds at my feet or mingled with the bushes that dotted the meadow. Every step carried the scent of mint and basil. I caught a glimpse of sunlit water through a break in the trees edging the valley. If I strained my ears I could catch the murmur of a distant brook. I shook my head, still unable to put my feelings into words and disconcerted by the need to do so, by the reminder that Yugi couldn't automatically hear my thoughts.

"I missed having you at my core. I've searched for you in my mind dozens of times since we've been apart… but it's been an amazing experience as well," I admitted.

"I'm glad I can hug you now, Yami," Yugi said.

The Kaiba brothers still hadn't let go of each other. They'd been silent the whole time. I jumped when Mokuba started sobbing.

"I'm sorry I disobeyed you," Mokuba wailed.

"It's okay. I know why you did it," Kaiba said.

"So, it's okay I came?" Mokuba asked eagerly.

Kaiba opened his mouth, then shut it as quickly. He knew what Mokuba wanted him to say. He couldn't bring himself to do it. I wondered if Kaiba had ever lied to his brother.

"Can you forgive me?" Mokuba sobbed.

"As long as you're alive and by my side, I can do anything," Kaiba promised, still holding his brother tightly. "I don't want you to put yourself in danger for me. You shouldn't have to do that. I'm the older brother. But we're together and that's what matters. We're a team."

Kaiba looked at me over Mokuba's head. "I kept up my end of the bargain," he said smugly. I smiled. I had missed Kaiba. "And so did you," Kaiba added as he finally relaxed his grip on his brother.

I was about to protest that I'd protected Mokuba out of affection and decency, not because of any "bargain" that existed solely in Kaiba's head – but before the indignant words left my tongue, Mokuba turned to face me, bowed, and said, "Thank you, Yami." The boy touched the Puzzle around his neck and added to Yugi, "This is yours."

We walked over to them. Yugi smiled and reached for the Puzzle. The transfer was smooth. I was back with Yugi. Mokuba looked at me, a slight question in those large gray eyes. I reached out and ruffled his hair, relieved that nothing had changed, that he was still precious to me. He ducked out from under my hand, shook out his hair, and grinned.

I glanced up at Kaiba. He looked tired. He was standing right behind Mokuba, his hands on his brother's shoulders. His fingers were long and deceptively slender. I'd seen how capable they were. I'd seen him fight. His body had a wiry strength hidden behind his clothes. I had a sudden impulse to reach out, to touch the muscles lying in wait beneath his coat.

I raised my eyes to his face again and was irresistibly reminded of the eight-year-old version who'd dropped by for a visit one night. Kaiba was taller than that child, and stronger; his face had lengthened, his chin had become more pointed. Only his eyes – intense and yet curiously hard to read – and the cinnamon-chocolate shock of hair remained the same.

As I watched, Kaiba's expression changed to what, in anyone else, I would have called fear.

"Oh shit. We haven't faced a challenge in far too long. How about you?" he asked.

I nodded grimly. "The same."

He moved in front of Mokuba and scanned the surroundings. It still looked like the perfect vacation spot.

"We're due," he said. He moved as though reaching for his pockets and a long knife appeared in each hand. I called in my own sword and stood next to Yugi.

"Are we preparing for the worst or guaranteeing that it'll happen?" Yugi asked.

"What do you mean?" I said. I was surprised I had to ask; surprised I didn't just know. For the first time Yugi had a thought I couldn't follow, an idea I didn't agree with as soon as he voiced it. Was this a side effect of our separation? If so, why had it shown up now that we were reunited? Not knowing automatically what was in Yugi's mind made me feel lonely. But it also made me feel like my own person.

"I'm not sure," Yugi answered. "It's something Kaiba said to me… that the game matches the way he sees things."

"It does indeed," I said with satisfaction. I'd felt challenged and excited ever since my arrival, feelings I'd come to associate with Kaiba.

"Yeah, but does it have to? I mean… we're all here, too," he said.

I stared at him; it was confusing being this confused by Yugi. "Our games have never been mere child's play," I reminded him. "They have always had meaning, have tested our beliefs, our souls."

"Yeah… I guess I'm not making much sense," Yugi said.

Before I could answer duel monsters began appearing. The four of us were together now. Unfortunately that also meant that the game could throw 28 monsters, spell or trap demons, or apparitions from my hidden memories at us. Even worse, with so many cards at its disposal, the game could afford to use monsters as sacrifices to call up even more powerful ones.

The game wasted no time setting up its strategy. Marauding Captain appeared, surrounded by his troops – foot soldiers and ninja – all with drawn swords. I looked past them to the general commanding the assault. The game had had to fuse three monsters to create Rainbow Neos. Now he hovered above the field, held aloft by each stroke of his powerful wings. His armor and wings were pure white; sunlight glinted off the gold adorning both. He had a terrible beauty as he hung above us looking more like a stern but just angel than an implacable foe. Could creatures of evil like Zorc or Gozaburo, have summoned a monster that radiated light and hope, that seemed to carry the warmth of the sun within its frame? Or was the game sending us a message even as it prepared to kill us?

Whatever the answer, the threat was real. Kaiba's Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon was strong enough to take him out, but before Kaiba could assemble him, a Dragon Capture Jar appeared.

"Don't worry, Nisama! I have Remove Trap," Mokuba yelled.

"Don't bother," Kaiba growled, but Mokuba had already summoned the spell card. Before the heap of opened chains and restraints could hit the ground, Rainbow Neos discarded a spell card of his own and swept Remove Trap off the field.

"Well, at least at this rate, he's going to run out of cards soon," Mokuba said.

"He wants to burn spell cards, Mokuba. It's part of the plan. Take a look at the monsters. Gearfried the Swordsmaster and Gilford the Legend are out there," Kaiba explained.

"Gilford the Legend can pick up any Equip Spell Cards Rainbow Neos discards and use them to power up the warriors facing us. And for each one that Gilford uses on Gearfried the Swordsmaster, he gets to destroy one of our monsters. This game may well be unbeatable," I said, staring at the forces arrayed against us.

"They're trying for a one-turn-kill!" Yugi yelled.

"Can this really be the answer, after all?" Kaiba asked. He'd spoken quietly, but I turned towards the bitterness in his voice.

"I created this game to get answers," Kaiba continued. "Is this my answer, then – that the power of unity is a sham? That all it does is leave you vulnerable, more open to attack than you've ever been before?"

"No!" I yelled. "How dare you give up so easily? You said you believe in our decks – and in us. This is merely a setback – and one we will overcome!"

"You know what, guys? I read every line of code in this game before we got here. If this situation's as bad as you say, there's no rule that we have to stick around to meet it," Mokuba yelled, as he summoned Teleportation Operator.

Mokuba had grown as a duelist. It was a clever move. Instantly a slim monster, human seeming except for his pointed ears and pale blue skin, appeared. He was dressed like the doorman at one of Domino's fancier hotels. As an effect monster, he was immune to Rainbow Neos' ability to destroy spell and trap cards at will. Behind Teleportation Operator, a shimmering disk started to form. Once completed, it would carry us to safety – if we could reach it in time.

Mokuba's card carried a heavy penalty though. He wouldn't be able to use his remaining monsters until the teleportation was complete. But before the hologram fully materialized, Kaiba played Assumption of Risk. Now it was Kaiba's, and not Mokuba's monsters who were barred from play.

"The Dragon Capture Jar knocked out three of my monsters anyway," Kaiba said.

The teleportation circle had finally formed. We had to reach it before it disappeared. Teleportation Operator waved a white gloved hand, urging us to hurry. It wasn't going to be easy. Kaiba had designed the hologram. He'd adapted Teleportation Operator – which ordinarily called for a reshuffling of the deck – to this game. But Kaiba had never believed in running from a fight.

He'd designed the monster so that the teleportation disk appeared off to the side, away from the person who'd summoned it. I wasn't sure we could get there before we were stopped – and killed. Already the soldiers and ninja, led by the Marauding Captain, had formed into a unit. We raced towards the Teleportation Operator and safety.

All of us except Kaiba.

He'd jumped a little in front of us as soon as the challenge had begun. Now he ran, not for safety, but to cut off our attackers.

"Get out of here!" he ordered. "Summon whatever warriors you can to help me stall for time."

"Get back here!" I yelled.

"No… look… this is my game. The monsters are going to focus on me."

He was right. Already the monsters had started moving towards him, leaving the path to safety open.

"Get Mokuba out of here!" he yelled as the first of our foes reached him. I watched as he cut down a soldier, then spun to drop a ninja in its tracks. As fearsome a fighter as Kaiba was though, even with the Celtic Guardian and Apprentice Knight rushing to join him, there was no way Kaiba would survive unless one of us stayed behind to help. But my first responsibility was to protect Yugi and Mokuba. It was what Kaiba himself would expect.

"Get on that teleportation circle and go! All of you! I've owed you for Mokuba's life since Duelists' Kingdom – and before. I'm happy to have the chance to repay that debt," he shouted, parrying a blow from the Marauding Captain.

"No!" I yelled, hating the thought those might be the last words besides curses I'd hear from Kaiba.

The grim faced monster was shorter than Kaiba, but far broader, his armor making him appear even more formidable. The Marauding Captain's broadsword caught Kaiba on the side. Kaiba managed to partially deflect it, but the force of his strike pushed Kaiba backwards as if he was a toy. I waited for Kaiba to crumple to the ground, waited for the earth to receive his blood.

A wave of fury swept through me… at the Marauding Captain for taking Kaiba's life so casually, at Kaiba himself for never learning, for always treating his life as if it truly was the meaningless game chip he'd once named it. I longed to rush to him, to catch him in my arms, but I was rooted to my place by Yugi's side.

Miraculously, Kaiba regained his footing. I stared at him, unable to believe he was still alive. Neither could the Marauding Captain. He paused, stunned, and that hesitation cost him his life. The Marauding Captain was armored throughout his torso and from the knees down. His upper legs were unprotected. Kaiba slashed straight for his thigh, cutting deeply enough to make the fierce knight stumble forward, his head tilted downwards. Kaiba drove forwards, his crisscrossed blades catching the Marauding Captain's unprotected neck between them. With a swift crossing movement, Kaiba severed the captain's head from his shoulders.

Kaiba jumped back as the monster fell, dashing his hand across his eyes to wipe away the blood. In the sudden stillness I heard Yugi swallow.

"Nisama!" Mokuba yelled. He jumped towards his brother. Yugi and I grabbed him and wrestled him towards Teleportation Operator, who was gesturing even more wildly now.

"Get him out of here!" Kaiba ordered, as the momentary lull in the fight caused by the Marauding Captain's fall ended.

"No! This is just like my nightmare!" Mokuba yelled.

"What nightmare?" I asked.

"I've had it ever since Battle City… the last time was just before this all started. We're about to take the elevator out of the basement and escape Alcatraz before it blows up. Then at the last minute, Nisama says that he lost, that he deserves to die. He shoves me at Isono and Fubeta and tells them to get me to safety. I try to fight them off, but I can't. Just like now," he sobbed, going limp. "My brother's about to die and I can't stop it."

"No. It's not like your nightmare. We're here now. Trust me," Yugi said. He fumbled with the chain around his neck.

"No, Yugi," I protested. "We've just been reunited."

"Kaiba needs you more. Mokuba and I will be safe. We can't let him die for us."

I'd never felt so helpless. I couldn't leave Yugi. I didn't want Kaiba to die.

"You told me you trusted me, that I was strong enough to make it on my own, to look out for myself and my friends," Yugi said earnestly. "How am I ever going to believe any of that if we abandon Kaiba now? You know we can't be the ones to make Mokuba's nightmare come true."

"You'd both do that? For us?" Mokuba said, eyes wide with a stunned hope.

I nodded, too confused to say anything more.

* * *

 **KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

I couldn't fucking believe it. I was going to die in my own virtual world. I looked at Mokuba. At least Yugi and Yami would protect him. I frowned at that. Yami thought of Yugi as his first responsibility, not Mokuba. Would he really do whatever it took to see Mokuba home safe? But I'd learned something about Yugi. He could be trusted.

"Promise me, Yugi… whatever happens, you'll see Mokuba gets out of here alive," I yelled.

He nodded. "I promise," he said. "But he's not the only one getting rescued today."

I knew what was going to happen the moment I saw Yami disappear, even before Yugi yelled, "I'm sending Yami to help."

"No!" I screamed as Yami disappeared. So did half the monsters facing me. I filed that away – with one of us gone, the game had erased seven monsters from the field.

Yugi's Eagle Eye flew over, the Puzzle in its beak. Automatically I caught it and dropped the Puzzle around my neck.

"I'm trusting you, Yami," Mokuba yelled as the other duelist appeared at my side.

"Damn you," I screamed at Yami. "You should be with them, not me!"

"I know," he answered.

But it was too late. The Teleportation Operator had done its job. Yugi and Mokuba were gone. At least Mokuba was safe.

With their departure, Rainbow Neos vanished. He was a fusion monster and the change from four to two opponents must have disrupted the cards that went into his make-up. Neither Yami nor I had any monsters on the field. Yami's Celtic Guardian had died protecting me. The Apprentice Knight had disappeared with Yugi. Yami looked at me, grinned, and called up Raigeki. With Rainbow Neos gone, there was nothing stop stand in the way of the spell card's tremendous destructive force.

Lightning rained down on the remaining monsters, blasts that shook the ground apart, that instantly disintegrated our foes, leaving behind the faint smell of ozone and charred flesh. I'd never seen Raigeki up close and personal before. There was an electric charge in the air. The aftershock lifted us skyward, sent us hurling on the winds that followed, carrying us far from the battle field. I wondered if the fury Yami had unleashed was going to spell our deaths as well. I managed to grab on to Yami as the wind carried us into its vortex, only to spit us out and disappear.

Now that the challenge seemed over – and the Dragon Capture Jar had shattered in the first streak of lightening, I called in my Blue Eyes White Dragon as Yami and I fell to earth. We landed on her broad back. She carried us to the ground with surprising gentleness for such a powerful beast. I felt safe enough to doze off, but the ride was too brief, and I wanted to enjoy every second. As we disembarked, she dipped her head in salute and disappeared.

I took stock of our surroundings. I'd designed the game as one large land mass. We'd been carried pretty far – not all the way to the edge, since I couldn't see the ocean. At a guess, we were slightly to the interior in a section I hadn't finished rendering.

Yami looked around. "Why is the sky gold?" he asked.

Technically it ranged from amber to a light-infused yellow, covering the full range of color saturation. The word "gold" made it sound flat, uniform, like paint on a wall. My sky was much more complex.

I shrugged. "I hadn't finished designing the setting for this section yet. I changed the colors so the incomplete parts would stand out."

"You misunderstood my question. Why did you choose gold? It looks strange… but so alive."

I nodded. "That's why I picked it… to remind myself: it's the future; it can be anything."

"It's curiously beautiful." Yami's voice was so low, it sounded almost like it was reverberating inside of me. I glanced at the Puzzle around my neck. Could this be cause and effect? But to be honest, this wasn't the first time Yami had been in my head. It was the first time though, I felt drawn in, and that made a difference.

I thought about what had just happened. Yami might have been able to forestall Rainbow Neos. He'd had strategy all along. I hadn't given him a chance to use it, not when we'd been together, not when it had mattered most. I'd said I trusted him, but the moment Mokuba had been in danger, nothing else had mattered. I was used to not trusting people. This was the first time it had bothered me.

"I should have waited and given you a chance to play your cards," I said.

I was expecting him to yell, but he smiled instead.

"Don't worry. I'm sure the four of us will get more chances to fight together. I trust Yugi to protect Mokuba until we're all reunited."

I nodded. It wasn't like I had a choice.

"That was some fight. Are you okay?" he asked.

I nodded again. We had more important matters than my health to discuss and it was getting hard to think.

"Did we win?" I asked him.

"I'm not sure," Yami admitted.

"There's one way to tell. Unhide codes." I grunted when they appeared. "The answer seems to be yes, we won. I don't get it. We didn't beat them. All we did was get away with our lives."

"What more of a victory do you want? Have you ever considered that surviving each day, each challenge, is a victory to be treasured?"

I frowned. "It's not what I'm used to."

"No. You're used to losing meaning death. Then why isn't being alive, winning?"

I didn't have time to argue this. I tried to access the codes even though I had absolutely no idea what change I'd make. But it didn't matter.

I'd designed dialog boxes so the program could give me status updates. They also told players when new items had been added to their inventory or when items had been saved. None of that explained why a dialog box picked that moment to open, giving me the maddening message that as I hadn't completed the final stage of the challenge, my prize (presumable changing things) was being withheld until I did.

"What the fuck?" I yelled.

Predictably Yami shouted my name as if I'd forgotten it. I calmed down enough to explain the situation to him. "The program's supposed to do what I tell it to. It's not supposed to be fucking talking to me. What does that even mean?"

"I guess it means that you shouldn't expect to be able to claim a reward for winning a challenge when you can't even tell if you won or not," he said, and that familiar smirk was back. (Not that I'd missed it.)

I grunted and muttered, "Hide codes."

It was time to get started on finding Mokuba. I pulled out my GPS tracker. My knees buckled as I stared at its mutilated remains in shock. I managed to sit down on a rock, my movements as precise as if I'd planned them. I thought back to the fight and remembered Marauding Captain's sword slashing my side. I'd vaguely wondered at the time why I hadn't died, why all I'd felt was a hard, blunt blow. Now it felt like his blade had finally reached my heart. The guts of my GPS tracker were visible through the tear running down its length. One glance was enough to confirm that it was unrepairable. As a final insult, a ninja's shuriken had smashed the darkened LCD screen, not that it had any information to display, anyway.

"Kaiba! What's wrong?" Yami yelled, running over to me.

I held up the mangled GPS.

"That's why Marauding Captain's blow didn't kill you," Yami said.

I nodded. "That's not important right now," I started explaining.

"Not important? This thing saved your life! How dare you say that's unimportant?" Yami shouted. It was strange – he hadn't been mad that I'd messed up whatever game plan he'd had, or that somehow I'd screwed up in the final step of the challenge… and now here he was yelling at me.

"Without the GPS, we can't track Mokuba and Yugi," I said.

"I know you're worried about your brother. But we still know how they think, and that means we can find them," Yami said, calming down.

I nodded, trying to analyze the situation. Yugi had promised to protect Mokuba. The obvious way to do that was to take down the people responsible for this whole mess in the first place, but Yugi was much more conventional.

"Did Yugi read the game info I gave him?" I asked Yami.

"More of it than me," Yami admitted. "He's familiar with the maps and the terrain descriptions."

"Good. I set up a series of safe houses towards the center of the land mass. I've activated them. Yugi knows that. Yugi and Mokuba will probably head towards them."

"Unhide map," I called out. I studied it, then hid it again. I started to stand up now that we had a plan of action. I winced and exhaled sharply.

"Kaiba! You're hurt!" Yami said.

I shrugged. "It's not a big deal. I stocked our inventories with healing potions. They work just like in any other role playing game."

Yami studied me. I could feel every tear in my garments, every rip in the exposed flesh. I'd jumped out in front of the others when the monsters had attacked. When you do that you can usually expect to pay.

"The dark colors hid the blood," he said. His voice was accusatory. "I'm not even going to bother asking why you tried to hide the fact you were hurt from me or how you expected to get away with it. I'm calling in a healing potion and patching you up before we go any farther."

"Whatever," I said. Yami's voice sounded so close. It was confusing. So was his hand on my shoulder, stripping off my jacket. My right sleeve was ripped; there was a slice along the arm. A couple of shuriken had taken a few nicks out of my side, a knife had slashed my ribs. Nothing was deep. My clothes had taken the worst of the damage and, unlike my body, they'd repair themselves.

"You're lucky to have gotten off as lightly as you did. Lie down," Yami muttered. His voice, pissed off as it was, still sounded… intimate.

I hated being on my back, but he had a point. I went to unbutton my shirt so he could clean up the cuts on my chest and side, and grimaced as I had to use my arm. The adrenaline from the fight was gone; the muscles were tightening up. I let Yami unbutton the shirt, so I could shrug out of it as well. It was strange letting anyone get that close.

I took a deep breath, forcing myself to lie still. I'd said I trusted Yami. I did. But I felt exposed. I wanted someone to pay for that feeling, and the only one here was the person I'd invited in in the first place. Even when the thin cotton of my shirt had been between us, I'd been aware of his fingers with each button he'd undone. The Puzzle should have been cold on my chest now that my shirt was no longer a barrier. It was warm instead as though Yami himself was on top of me. Was this chunk of gold why everything had felt so disorienting… why I was aware of Yami's every movement? Or was it just his unfamiliar nearness?

"I didn't want you here at all," I complained. "What could Mokuba and Yugi have been thinking of?"

"Mokuba was probably thinking he'd prefer his brother to survive. Stay still. I'm going to take care of these cuts."

Yami reached for my arm. His fingers traced my bicep. "Your skin feels alive… warm…" he mumbled. I couldn't tell if he was talking to himself or me.

"So?" I asked, grateful to him for annoying me, for distracting me from how fucking near he was.

"Skin doesn't really feel like anything else…" He paused, then shook his head. His voice was strange, thicker somehow, as if he had to push past a stiff wind to get each word out.

If Yami had been his usual arrogant self, I would have yelled at him and everything would have gone back to normal. I wanted to get angry, to fight back against this strangely heightened awareness of his presence, against the way my muscles seemed to pulse against fingers … but I couldn't, not when Yami was speaking so softly, not when I had to strain to catch every word before the air whisked it away.

"This is still so new to me. I'm not used to being this close… to any of this…" Yami said.

Neither was I.

I didn't get why he'd been angry before – or why he wasn't now. It was getting harder and harder to think. Yami called in his healing potion and applied it in silence. His touch was gentle; he moved over my skin slowly, purposely, covering the area with smooth, circular motions, starting with my arm then moving up my shoulder and down my torso. His fingers were cool from the potion. My skin seemed to heat beneath his hands, nonetheless. It should have been soothing, relaxing even, but I was ready to jump out of my skin. I suddenly wanted to shy away from his touch, from the feeling of his hands running across my chest, following the line of my ribs… but I've never shied away from anything in my life… and that would have made this unfamiliar sensation stop.

Yami's head was down; I could almost feel his breath on my side as he carefully applied each layer of salve. His motions were so careful, delicate almost… I shouldn't have felt them so intensely. But each feather-light, almost-fleeting caress seemed to linger. I remembered his hand on my cheek and throat when we'd first arrived. As brief as his touch had been, it'd been permanent as well… as if he'd branded my skin with the faint imprint of his fingers.

The potion worked just as it had when I'd tested it out with Yugi. As Yami smoothed it over my ribs, I could feel the skin knit itself back together. The pain I'd been ignoring decreased and disappeared. My skin was unmarked again – or as unmarked as it ever got. I waited for him to say something about the scars that remained, but he stayed silent.

I expected him to get up, since he'd finished, but Yami touched one of the older scars instead. He couldn't have been stupid enough to think he could do anything about injuries that old, and his fingers were free of the healing potion, anyway. Even without it, his touch felt good in the same unnerving, unsettling kind of way.

No one had touched those scars since the doctor had sewn me up. I'd stood there, knowing every movement, every facial expression would be reported. I'd refused to show any sign of pain or fear. The doctor had worked in silence. His hands had been encased in latex gloves and I was willing to bet that the tailor who had made my jacket had felt more of a connection to the item he was stitching. I wasn't surprised he never asked what had happened or why he was such a regular visitor at the mansion. Money and power buy that kind of reticence.

I hated the thought of seeing questions in Yami's eyes – but Yami's head was still down, his breath was still tickling my chest. Now that I'd grown used to maintaining a poker face, the only thing I would have had to offer to anyone trying to spy out my expression was confusion.

It was strange to have Yami's fingers on those scars now, so many years after they were made. My skin felt different, the scars I'd grown used to felt more alive. I was suddenly more aware that the skin was thinner there, that it was faintly ribbed. With Yami's fingers gliding over each groove as though memorizing the feel, they seemed newer somehow. Or maybe it was just that _I_ felt newer… raw and unsettled. The fact I wanted to lie here, letting Yami stay this close, letting him touch me even though there was no longer any need, except the vague need I felt for it to continue, meant something was dangerously wrong.

"Kaiba," Yami said softly.

Suddenly, I couldn't stand it. His touch… his voice… everything was too close. I got up, wresting myself out of his hold, gentle as it was. Who was I kidding? The gentleness made it worse. I stalked off, feeling more myself with each firm step.

"Kaiba! Are you okay? It's dangerous to rush off like that! Where are you going?"

"Away," I answered, knowing no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn't outrun his voice.

* * *

 _  
**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter quickly so I could post before Christmas.**   
_

**Card Note:** I made up Teleportation Operator and Assumption of Risk. I liked the idea that Mokuba wouldn't share Kaiba's determination to hold his ground at all costs. I think Mokuba is practical enough (and has less of his pride tied into gaming) that he'd be comfortable with the idea of living to fight another day.

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** You have to wonder how many times in his life Kaiba has experienced touch as a welcome thing. In a way, he might be as unused to that as Yami.

I always notice which chapters come before holidays, although it's pure coincidence what gets posted when. I can't quite decide if this one is seasonally appropriate or not…

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for the New Year!

 _As usual, comments would be adored…_


	20. Lord of the Storm

**CHAPTER 20: LORD OF THE STORM**

 _There's a moment in every hero's – or villain's – life when it becomes clear: things are not working out according to plan. And in a rare moment of hero-villain solidarity both sides can agree: the law of unintended consequences sucks and should be repealed. Like the Count of Monte Cristo, suddenly wondering whether chasing revenge for ten years had been the best use of his time, heroes, villains, and everyone in between stands united in their disgruntlement at the way life constantly, casually, even cheerfully, rearranges things to suit a cosmic, rather than a human, convenience._

 _And whether it's Darcy from "Pride and Prejudice" having the proposal he offered so confidently flung back in his face or Darth Vader fighting motion-sickness while watching the Death Star explode as his TIE fighter went spinning off into space, the question facing them remains the same: Where will you go from here?_

 **YAMI'S NARRATIVE**

Of all the situations this game could have conjured up, this one was the most unexpected and unsettling: Seto Kaiba had let me tend his injuries. He'd managed to remind me of a wild creature, even when lying tamely at my feet. He'd been tense; every muscle had twitched away at my lightest touch, before stiffening as if preparing for a blow.

I'd started working in the salve. It would be too much to say Kaiba had relaxed, but his muscles had softened, had become more plaint with each circular move of my hand. Then the tension in his body had changed, had become more charged, as though a current was passing between us. I'd moved on without a thought from the newer wounds to the older.

As I stroked them, I was reminded of my first visit to this virtual world. Kaiba had fought with the Wicked Worm Beast; the monster had ripped his jacket and shirt. I'd looked at Kaiba's avatar and seen faint scars showing through the tears in the material. Kaiba could have made his avatar flawless. Instead he'd coded in each scar, as surely as they'd been carved into his skin in life.

There was an honesty to Kaiba in all things.

I continued stroking these older wounds, although I had no healing potion to offer. Kaiba accepted my touch; he moaned softly, once. My own breath hitched in response; the air felt cool against my lips as I drew it in.

"Kaiba?" I whispered in reply, questioning… everything.

It was as though he'd been chained and I'd released him by calling his name. Abruptly, he pushed back, and stalked off… rocking me back on my heels, leaving me feeling suddenly, strangely, empty.

It clearly hadn't occurred to the oaf that he couldn't get away from me, not as long as he was wearing the Puzzle. Whenever he stopped, I'd be there. I grabbed his shirt and coat and followed anyway, preferring heading out under my own power to being pulled along willy-nilly by the Puzzle.

I was furious.

I remembered Kaiba throwing the Puzzle to Yugi when we arrived, chucking it casually as if it was a trinket and I was a mere toy. He'd seemed to regret insulting me at the time. His remorse obviously hadn't lasted past the next opportunity to show his disregard.

Kaiba disappeared from view behind a set of boulders. I rounded them and felt my anger freeze – then reignite as it found a new target. Kaiba was fighting the Blizzard Warrior.

I watched Kaiba battle his much bigger opponent. My hot defensive anger surprised me. I'd been justifiably angry with the jerk and now seeing him in danger, seeing him charge his far larger foe… now, I wanted to protect Seto Kaiba, of all things. Was it because he was wearing the Puzzle? But then I thought of Duelists' Kingdom, angry all over again at the clown who'd carried a tainted sliver of Kaiba's soul, furious at Pegasus for using it to mock him. I thought of Noa's world and felt my rage mount as I remembered seeing Kaiba turning to stone before my eyes, still reaching out to his brother. Then I knew: Kaiba wearing the Puzzle hadn't changed a thing. If anything, it had allowed me to acknowledge what was already there.

This didn't seem to be a challenge, or at least no additional monsters had appeared with my arrival. It was just Kaiba, the Blizzard Warrior and this glacial setting. They were standing shin deep in snow; a storm swirled around them – and only them. The boulders where I stood were still warm from the sun; small wildflowers bloomed in their cracks and crevices.

There was no Dragon Capture Jar, but Kaiba hadn't called in his Blue Eyes White Dragon. Instead he'd played Burning Land… but instead of laying it on the field he'd used the card on himself. His brown hair, his naked torso, his pants, even his boots were coated with a layer of fire.

Kaiba threw himself at the Blizzard Warrior, knocking the sword out of his enemy's hand with his first strike, trying to use the intensity of his anger to melt the ice monster. Burning Land was a continuous spell card, as long-lasting as the rage that had burned inside of Kaiba ever since I'd known him. Kaiba weakened the Blizzard Warrior with each attack before being rebuffed, before being flung back to land in the snow. I caught the blue flash of the Blizzard Warrior's eyes, as intense as Kaiba's own.

Kaiba picked himself out of the snowdrift and threw himself at the Blizzard Warrior, again and again, wanting no weapon beyond his own body and his rage. But his attacks were coming more slowly now. He shouted at the Blizzard Warrior; it was hard to tell if he was cursing or sobbing. I assumed it was the former. I'd never heard Kaiba sob before; it would take more than an ice monster to make him do so now.

If it had been Yugi, I would have leaped to battle, to protect him. I would have had no doubts. But this was Kaiba… and I couldn't shake the feeling that this was something he needed to do… that the Blizzard Warrior wasn't there by accident. Kaiba's fury was familiar, but I wondered suddenly just what he was fighting so desperately: the feelings this game was forcing him to face – or the ice that had encased his soul for far too long?

The fire surrounding Kaiba lessened in intensity with each of his attacks; I wondered if Kaiba's rage was burning itself out against this implacable foe. Kaiba finally sank to his knees, the flames from Burning Land dying around him. The Blizzard Warrior approached his prey.

I ran forwards calling in Summoned Skull, but before I found out if the game would allow my monster to come to Kaiba's aid, Kaiba struck. He summoned a lance and thrust upwards with all his power. His timing was perfect, catching the Blizzard Warrior in mid lunge. The ice monster impaled himself on the point, the force of his forward charge driving his body onto the lance that Kaiba held steady and braced against the ground. Kaiba pushed the lance, still with its heavy load, aside, and fell forward. He thrust his hands out to break his fall and struggled back to his knees. The Blizzard Warrior disappeared, leaving a pool of blood in the snow.

Kaiba turned and saw me. Icicles hung from his hair; snow dusted his thin cheekbones. His lips were tinged with blue. I had a sudden impulse to press my own against them, to capture the frost escaping with each breath.

"Damn you. I don't need anyone!" he roared.

"Kaiba?" I asked, too puzzled and worried to be angry.

"Don't pretend! Why did you follow unless you figured that I couldn't handle things on my own?"

"I'm here because I don't have a choice, you jerk! You don't want me here? Fine! You've made that clear. All you have to do is leave the Puzzle in the snow, and I'll disappear – just like I don't really exist, like I'm just another hologram," I yelled, throwing his coat and shirt in the snow at his feet.

He ignored them as he staggered up from his knees. "Damn you! Do you think I'd do that to you? Do you think I'd treat you like some third rate duelist?" he said, glaring at me, as if he hadn't done just that.

"No. I know you wouldn't," I said, relieved. It hadn't been deliberate. That mattered, at least to me.

"How many fucking times do I have to say I know you're real before you take me at my word?" he demanded.

"I don't know, asshole. About as many times as I'll have to say that I respect you before you'll believe me," I yelled back. After a moment, Kaiba matched my grin.

We stood there awkwardly, staring at each other, as the snow sank into my boots. Kaiba turned his head. I had to strain to catch the words…

"… so cold," he muttered.

"I know. It was a hard battle. I saw it," I said. The wind was still rushing around us, brushing stray snowflakes against his shoulders and bare back. I went over to him and hugged him tightly. My head was against his chest. I rubbed his arms to warm them, then moved my hands to his back.

The sun came out to beam down on us; the snow turned to grass as if an ice storm hadn't swept over the ground. For a second, when I'd first touched him, Kaiba's whole body had tensed, unsure if this was a new threat, one harder to decipher than the Blizzard Warrior's. Then as the sun thawed him, Kaiba started to shiver violently, drawing in gasping breaths through chattering teeth. I'd never realized how painful a process unfreezing could be.

Or did I?

I'd never really felt things before coming here, not in the same way. Now my skin, my hands, seemed almost painfully alive. I was abruptly aware of how close Kaiba and I were standing. I could feel the heat from his body through the soft cotton of my shirt. I suddenly wished that that flimsy barrier was gone, that I was holding him to me, skin on skin. My lips were against his chest. I could feel my own breath coming back to me, warned by his body.

Kaiba had stopped shivering. He leaned slightly against me, his back muscles either warmed by the sun or by my hands, heat that seemed to transfer itself back to me, that made my own blood flow more swiftly. Now it was my muscles, not his, which felt tighter, tenser somehow. He'd held his arms awkwardly at his sides as I'd massaged them. Now, one hand reached up and tentatively, almost experimentally, touched a stalk of my hair…

I'd come into the game to find my past, but it was the things I kept discovering that startled me. This game disconcerted me as much as Kaiba himself, as much as feeling Kaiba's heartbeat quicken against my cheek. This world had shown me things I'd never considered. It had pulled into the light, not only my long forgotten past, but what I was feeling here and now… and gave those feelings an immediacy I usually associated with my quest for my memories.

Feelings like desire…

I took a step back, stunned I had a name to put to this feeling. I stared at Kaiba. He crossed his arms in front of his chest. I wondered if he felt as cold and bereft as I did at this moment, but I had no words to offer him. This feeling was too new to be shared, even with the person who had inspired it. Before I could decipher Kaiba's expression, he bent down and picked up his clothes. They were dry and undamaged.

"Coming back to life is difficult," I said, needing to break the silence.

He nodded.

"What were you trying to do? Do you even know who or what you were fighting?" I asked, wondering if the same could be said of me. Was I searching for my past in order find my future – or simply to avoid looking at the things staring me in the face?

"I don't know," Kaiba said. "I turned a corner and there the Blizzard Warrior was… and all I could think was that I needed a fight. I didn't care what happened just as long as I…" he paused, searching for words.

"Wasn't thinking or feeling," I finished for him.

He nodded.

"Kaiba…" I said, for once not sure what would come after his name, needing to say it, anyway.

"We'd better keep moving," he said, heading out towards the center of his world and Mokuba.

"As long as we keep moving forwards," I answered as I followed.

* * *

 **BAKURA'S NARRATIVE**

Gozaburo had set up an alert so we'd be notified if the death of our foes was imminent. That part worked as advertised, bringing Zorc, myself, Gozaburo and Akunadin all together. Then instead of taking us to witness our victory, the alert had disappeared, leaving us in the dark as to what had happened. We had no idea which one of our enemies, if any, had died. Was it the pharaoh? After millennia of waiting had I missed it?

My master's new human tried to access the codes governing this world. That's when my master and Gozaburo realized several things in quick succession, and each discovery was more unpleasant than the last. The rules that governed this world had been changed. Neither my master nor Gozaburo could undo them. They couldn't even see all the changes that had been made as the later ones required a password before they could be viewed.

The pharaoh could never have done this. Even when he'd had his memories, he'd remembered nothing but his own certainty that his commands were just. But his high priest was full of guile. As distasteful as I'd found the proud puppets who surrounded the pharaoh, the High Priest had been different. Oh, he'd been as insufferably arrogant as the others, but he'd also been intelligent. Even now, he'd had the sense to master the technology of this world as well as he'd mastered magic in the past.

Zorc was arguing with Gozaburo Kaiba. They were trying to determine what had gone wrong and apportion blame. Their conversation came to me in snatches I couldn't avoid, even though I wasn't paying attention.

Gozaburo seemed to have decided that he preferred to be a monster. He was huge, red, and vaguely bull-like. It made him more interesting. He didn't get that the only reason Zorc was letting him live, the only reason Zorc had ever let anyone not bound to him live, was that, temporarily at least, he was useful. He wasn't stupid enough to trust Zorc, he just didn't get that the choice of life or death wasn't his. It never is. His usefulness would end and so would his life.

I couldn't wait for Zorc to kill him. I liked seeing humans burn. It wasn't as good as trapping their souls in votive dolls, but it came close. It was like bringing my family company. I was the eldest son. They'd died before I'd gotten old enough to make the proper sacrificial offerings in our family's name. I'd been making up for it ever since.

Gozaburo grunted. "The changes are negligible. It's asinine to think they will have an impact on the ultimate result. Let my adoptive son crow all he wants. It won't matter."

"Erase his changes, fool!" Zorc ordered.

Gozaburo roared incoherently in answer. For an instant his concentration slipped and a red business suit hung on his monster's body. His body turned into pure flame. The suit burned to ash. I snorted in amusement.

"May I remind you, Zorc, that you were the one who made _all_ changes unalterable when you added your obsolete gibberish to the program's coding? I warned you coding had to be specific," Gozaburo said. His anger abated and for an instant he shrank back to his regular human bulk, the red mass of his monster body devolving into an ordinary if oddly colored business suit. "Amateur. Change it yourself if you're so concerned," Gozaburo sneered as he went back to being a monster.

"That is no longer possible. I put my own energy, my own essence into augmenting this game, into ensuring its consequences would be real and final. I can't change its nature at this late date, not after investing so much of myself in it. Now, the game must play itself out," Zorc said.

He sounded as assured – as godlike – as ever, but I felt the first pang of uncertainty… I tasted the anguish doubt can bring. I'd staked everything on Zorc – on his being all knowing and all powerful.

"Maybe this will serve us, well," Zorc added.

I listened intently now, hating the unavoidable fact after 3,000 years, I was looking for reassurance I had made the right choice.

"I've always enjoyed the sight of trapped humans…" Zorc continued, "…watching them search in vain for an exit… that exquisite moment of despair when they realize there is no escape, that for all their bleating of free will, they're just as trapped as a cow in quicksand. It makes the moment of victory that much sweeter."

I forced myself to relax, to believe that he was in control, as always. I'd sold my soul to Zorc. I refused to doubt him now.

"It is perilous to tamper with destiny," Akunadin announced, acting, as usual, as if he hadn't heard anything that'd been said.

I stared at Akunadin. I saw a ghostly golden Eye flickering in his socket where the Millennium Item had once made its home. Every time I looked at it, I heard the screams of my family as they were caught in the fire the pharaoh had set loose upon our village. The fools that I'd lived among in Domino didn't understand… even the boy who looked so much like the accursed pharaoh hadn't known… the Millennium Items had been created out of the souls of the unfortunate.

Every time I saw Akunadin, I wanted to trap him in his own artifact – Zorc's instructions to the contrary. It made me angry, seeing the proof that Akunadin had once had one of the Millennium Items that had cost me everything when he hadn't paid a blood price for it.

But my master had forbidden me to harm Akunadin – or even talk to him. Akunadin was a tool. Zorc said that he was a necessary one. If letting Akunadin live would help me gain my revenge, I would obey Zorc.

The pharaoh was here. I was so close to my goal – killing the person responsible for the deaths of my family. It was hard following Zorc's orders, being so close, and yet taking the part of the gamesmaster and not a player. I had to hang on to my patience just a little longer. I'd be with my family soon. And when we were reunited I'd be able to tell them that their deaths had finally been avenged.

* * *

 _  
**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter and for much patience.**   
_

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Sorry for the delay in posting. One thing that I found interesting to think about in writing this is the idea that both Yami and Kaiba, not only don't have much experience sexually, but also don't have much experience with physical contact at all. Yami is pretty self-explanatory. But one thing that's always struck me about Kaiba is h rarely you see him hug Mokuba. The times stick out in my mind because they are so rare and in such intense contexts – after being reunited after Duelists Kingdom, after being de-stoned in Noa's Arc. Even though when they're in Noa's virtual world watching themselves arrive at the orphanage, one thing I loved was that as close as they're standing together, they're not quite touching.

Am I the only one who finds posting a chapter called, "Lord of the Storm" during a blizzard ironic?

 **Rating note:** I just realized that the story is rated "T" which certainly has been appropriate up until now. However, although obviously these two still have quite a ways to go before they feel comfortable with each other, I'll probably raise the rating on subsequent posts.

 **Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my LJ account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated. As per FFNet's policy I can no longer post responses at the end of each chapter.

 _Comments would be adored…_


	21. Extreme Victory

**MANGA NOTE:** The relationship between both Kaiba brothers and Yami in the early manga is nothing short of disastrous. Initially, Kaiba steals Sugoroku's BEWD from Yugi. Yami challenges him to a shadow game (or penalty game) to get it back. Yami wins when Kaiba summons the BEWD, but the dragon destroys itself rather than follow his commands. Yami inflicts a penalty game on Kaiba where he is trapped in the illusion that he is in the Duel Monsters world and is killed by his own monsters.

Mokuba, eager to prove himself to his brother and desperate to protect Kaiba from the consequences of going up against Yami again, challenges Yugi to his favorite game, Capmon. With a gang of taser-wielding elementary schoolers he threatens Yugi until Yami appears. Although Mokuba cheats, Yami (surprise!) wins. As part of the resulting penalty game Mokuba believes he's being sealed into a Capmon capsule. When Kaiba creates Death-T, Mokuba insists on being one of Yami's challengers. Kaiba misreads this as a personal attack on him, and when Mokuba loses he forces him to go through the Death Simulation chamber he had designed for Yami.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 21: EXTREME VICTORY**

 _Is there anything more predictable than the unexpected? Sherlock Holmes tumbles to his death off the Reichenbach Falls. But before the shocked gasp at his seeming demise has quite left our lips we're already expecting his triumphant return to 221B Baker Street in the next installment._

 _We may not know the exact combination of madwomen, fires, storms and telepathic dreams that will drive Jane Eyre and Rochester apart or bring them back together – but is there any doubt that separation and reunion is in the cards from the moment she crosses his threshold?_

 _And yet even the quietest moments can have a mystery all their own. Like the moment when the Count of Monte Cristo wonders if getting revenge was really the right thing to do after all, like the moment before Frodo volunteers to take a ring on a quest._

 _Perhaps the most unexpected outcomes of all are the things we learn about ourselves._

 **MOKUBA'S NARRATIVE**

We landed, butt first, in a field. The Teleportation Operator tipped his hat to us, bowed, and disappeared along with the disk that had brought us here. I punched the ground. I'd barely gotten to hug my brother before this stupid game had separated us again.

"I can't believe that worked! We escaped!" Yugi yelled, clapping me on the back.

"It didn't work. Not the way I planned. Nisama isn't here," I said, annoyed that I had to remind Yugi of something so obvious.

"Yeah," Yugi said, looking around like he expected Nisama and Yami to be sitting next to us. "Don't worry, Mokuba. They'll be fine." I wondered if he was just trying to make me feel better. Then Yugi added, "Can you imagine anything beating either your brother or Yami on their own, much less when they're together?"

I grinned. "True."

"He found you once before." Yugi laughed. "Your brother even has a GPS tracker with him."

I pulled the GPS tag out of my pocket. "I figured as much," I said.

I called in my map. Given the level of detail in the surroundings and the intense blue of the sky, I figured we were near the center of this world. I was right.

Yugi looked at the map and pointed to the safe houses my brother had set up. "We should head for them," he said.

"Sounds like a plan," I agreed.

I should have know things were going too well to last. Before I could get up a Capmon capsule formed itself around me. I'd been imprisoned in one before, after meeting Yami – and losing a penalty game to him. That had been over a year ago now, but it's not the kind of thing you forget.

With stunning speed the Capmon capsule closed over my head. Its sides were smooth and unbreakable. When its halves snapped shut, I was going to be trapped. I was going to be alone. As it closed I saw Yugi's face. Unlike the first time, his eyes were wide and violet and he looked horrified. This was Yugi, I reminded myself, not Yami. He wasn't going to sneer at me and walk away.

"Mokuba! Don't you have anything that can stop this?" he yelled.

I shook my head then realized Yugi couldn't see me anymore anyway. Unlike the first time I couldn't even find the seams where the two halves had come together. The capsule was bigger too. I even had room to move around a little. I heard the same voices as before though.

It was my old gang. They'd helped me grab Yugi; they'd been there for my penalty game with Yami.

" _What a pussy! Listen to him crying like a baby…. Yeah, who does he think he is, acting like he's so tough, telling us what to do…. Let's give the wimp something to cry about…"_

Once, hearing them turn on me had been the final thing to turn Yami's penalty game into a nightmare. I'd felt like I'd lost everything all at once: the game, my chance to protect my brother, Nisama's love, my friends. Now I knew better. I hadn't lost my brother and they'd never been my friends. Not really. Not like Yugi. And Yugi was here, somewhere. He wouldn't run out on me.

Their voices faded as Yugi called, "Mokuba! Can you hear me? Can you breathe?"

"Yeah," I yelled back.

"What is this thing? It looks like an egg… or a giant Capmon capsule. What's it doing here?" Yugi asked.

"Don't you remember us playing Capmon?"

"Why would I… oh… that time… you took me to that abandoned factory. You said you had a new game. I didn't know why you were mad. That's all I remember."

"Oh," I said. I wasn't sure he heard. I called in my largest throwing knife and tried cutting my way out, but the blade couldn't pierce the wall of the capsule. It was all covered with goo. It hadn't been like that the first time.

"I can't break out," I yelled.

"Do you have any weapons?" Yugi asked.

"Yeah. I tried to cut my way out, but nothing happened," I said.

"Don't worry. I'll get you out." It was still Yugi's voice, but it sounded more determined than I'd ever heard him.

"How?" I asked. "I saw your inventory before we came. You don't even have any weapons."

"I don't know, but I'll find a way."

He tapped against the capsule wall. It made a hollow sound.

"Hold on! I have an idea!" Yugi yelled. "What did they say in biology class?" he mumbled to himself.

"Biology? Like from school?" I asked.

Yugi laughed. "Yeah. Weird, huh?"

"I'm just glad you're the one here and not Jounouchi. Unless something you learned in lunch could help."

Yugi giggled again. "Well… kind of… Just hang on and I'll have you out of here."

I nodded, although I knew Yugi couldn't see me. I could handle this, especially now the voices had gone away. I started to calm down.

That's when the monsters started to shape themselves out of thin air.

They materialized so slowly I had plenty of time to recognize them: the skeletons still in their battle armor, the leering ghouls, the giant crocodile that looked like it was going to swallow me whole just as soon as his teeth became solid enough to bite. They weren't standard duel monsters. They were my brother's creations for Death-T. Just like before, the penalty game Yami had forced on me was merely a warm-up for my brother's.

"I'm not afraid!" I yelled at them.

"That's great, Mokuba," Yugi hollered back. I realized he had no clue what was going on and it was too hard to explain.

The skeleton closest to me grinned. The crossbow bolts protruding from his empty eye sockets bobbed as he moved his head.

I remembered what Nisama had said as he was building Death-T: no matter how scary they were, the holograms weren't real. People died because they were weak enough to believe in them. But Nisama had survived this illusion. He'd faced it every night for months.

"No!" I said quietly. I didn't want Yugi to hear me. "I don't believe Nisama would ever hurt me again."

The monsters laughed. I couldn't help shrinking back against the wall of the shell. I jumped back the instant my back touched its smooth surface.

"Hey! It's getting hot!" I yelled. "What's going on out there?"

"Sorry. It's the only thing I could think of." Yugi giggled again. The sound seemed to make the monsters waver for a moment. Maybe they were as surprised by it as me.

"From Bio class?" I asked, closing my eyes briefly. Maybe if I didn't look at them I could convince myself they weren't real.

"Yeah. This thing looks like a giant egg."

"So you're cooking me alive? Like you'd boil an egg? That's your great idea?" I yelled, opening my eyes again in shock. The monsters closest to the shell must have been sensitive to heat because they were melting.

"You can't hurt me!" I yelled.

They reached for me anyway, determined to kill me before they were destroyed themselves. A crocodile creature snapped at my leg. I jumped back, wincing as I crashed into the shell. Drool flew from its mouth as it snapped for my leg. It missed, but as its spit hit my jeans, the denim sizzled and burned away. My leg blistered where the crocodile's spit landed.

"I'm not trying to hurt you! I'm trying to help! Okay, I think the shell's brittle enough. Try cutting your way out, again," Yugi yelled.

My knives were longer and slightly heavier than standard throwing ones. Nisama had insisted. I remembered him telling me I could use them for defense if I needed to and this definitely qualified. Besides, having them in my hand made me feel like Nisama himself – and not just his monsters – was in here with me. Nisama wasn't the one trying to kill me. Not today. Not ever again. These monsters were here because of my fears, not his. I slashed at the skeletal had reaching for me. The brittle wrist bones broke. I moved forward, slicing through the monsters in my way, swinging wildly for the shell itself. I had to get out of here, and unlike at Death-T, I was going to do it on my own… well, with a little help.

As my knife hit the shell a crack appeared. I swung again and again, widening the hole. With each strike, the monsters became more formless, less real… less able to hurt me. Yugi started helping from the outside, tearing the shell away in chunks.

"What the fuck?" he yelled as I tumbled out, followed by a ghostly crew of skeletons and monsters. They turned to mist as soon as they hit the air.

Yugi helped me up. I'd been holding it together, but when I saw Yugi, I couldn't. I broke down in front of him and bawled like a little baby.

"I was so afraid," I sobbed.

My brother had once told me that the only way to be happy was to never reveal a weakness, but that just didn't seem to apply anymore. I was making a fool of myself, but it felt good.

"I keep saying I don't need anyone but Nisama, but that's just not true!" I cried. Yugi's arms went around me. He was a good size to cry against. I thought he was going to promise that everything would be all right, like my brother or even Yami would have, but he didn't.

"I was scared too," he said. "Suddenly I was all alone and I didn't know what to do, and I was so afraid that you needed me and I wasn't going to be able to help. It's like the first challenge I had here, with your brother, but this one was worse. I didn't even have Jounouchi's voice, calling me a wimp, for company. It was just me."

I stared at Yugi surprised. Hearing him say he'd felt just as lost and clueless as me made me feel better, somehow. Like I wasn't the only one here who was scared, and dumb as it sounds, I felt stronger knowing that.

I'd been so relieved at my escape I hadn't even wondered how Yugi had managed it. I heard a loud squawk and looked up. A very ruffled Niwatori was pecking through the broken pieces of the Capmon capsule as though it really was a giant egg and she was looking for her chick. She was pretty pissed; it was clear she didn't consider me an adequate substitute. I'd ridden a Niwatori once, when we'd gone to rescue my brother the first time he'd gotten stuck in a video game. I'd almost forgotten how big and fat they were. She shook out her feathers, jumped off the broken shell, and squawked angrily at Yugi again. She strutted around, croaking and flapping her ridiculously undersized wings until she disappeared.

"What the fuck?" I said, echoing Yugi.

Yugi giggled again, as though we both hadn't been sobbing like kids a minute ago.

"It was the only chicken I could think of big enough to hatch that thing," he said.

I'd never known Yugi was crazy before.

Then he noticed my pants. The burn on my leg started to hurt.

"Oh shit! What happened? Were those monsters part of … your original penalty game with Yami?" he asked.

"No. Not exactly. These monsters didn't have anything to do with Yami," I said, not wanting Yugi to feel bad. "The crocodile spat on me."

"Don't worry. I can fix you up in a minute. I'm just glad your brother had the sense to stock all our inventories with plenty of healing salve. It looks like we're going to need it."

"What the fuck are you talking about? My brother has plenty of sense!" I yelled, then stopped short. I couldn't believe I'd just said that. My brother wasn't infallible. I knew that. I'd known it ever since Death-T. But it was a hard habit to break.

After all he'd done for me, Yugi would have been perfectly right to yell at me for being so snotty to him, but he looked guilty.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I'm sure he does," Yugi agreed, as if he hadn't just seen the monsters from Death-T rolling around on the ground at our feet. "You two are an amazing team. He was worried about you the whole time I was with him. And he figured out how to find his way back to you."

I smiled at Yugi. I'd always assumed he let Yami duel for him because Yami was just better at it. Now it hit me that maybe Yugi did it because he knew how much Yami enjoyed dueling and he was too nice to keep Yami shut up in the Puzzle all day.

Yugi was right about the salve too. As soon as he put it on, my leg felt better.

"I didn't really know what happened to you that day. Was that what it was like, when Yami shut you in the capsule for real?" Yugi asked quietly.

"Yeah, pretty much. Except for the monsters. But I thought I was going to be stuck in there forever – or until I ran out of air."

"Yami did it all to protect me – and I never asked what he did or why."

I nodded, not sure what to say. I raced through all the possible answers in my head: _"It wasn't so bad…"_ Nah, Yugi'd never buy that… _"Hey no biggie, me and my brother built a theme park of death. Nobody's perfect…"_

I gave up and settled for saying, "Well, I did taser you."

"And that makes us even?" Yugi asked.

"Well, yeah, I guess, kind of."

Yugi laughed, but he shook his head. "Thanks for the out, but I don't think it works like that. Those penalty games… Yami was just trying to help… but once we were together, he would have told me about them if I'd asked. And I didn't." Yugi pressed his lips together, squared his shoulders and faced me, like a duel was about to go down. Odd as it sounds he reminded me of my brother, or maybe everyone stands that straight when they're judging themselves.

"At first I was afraid to find out what had happened," Yugi admitted. "Then I kind of forgot… there was so much going on. But I shouldn't have let it go."

"Well, you're not doing that now," I pointed out.

"Yeah, in an odd way, as crazy as this place is, I'm glad I'm here. It's like getting a second chance."

Yugi finished with the salve. We watched as the blisters on my leg lost their angry red color, then disappeared.

"The one thing I don't get," Yugi said, "is that it felt like the same challenge as when I was with your brother. I was alone and helpless. But I faced that fear once already. I won. Why'd it come back?"

"Because stuff does," I said. "Sometimes it's just like a horror movie where the bad guy comes back to life after he's been killed."

"I guess this game really is a dress rehearsal" Yugi said.

"What?" I asked, trying to figure out why Yugi was talking about dresses.

"You know… a dress rehearsal. Like for a dance recital. I saw Anzu's once…" Yugi's face suddenly turned pink. Then again he _was_ talking about dancing. "It's like I told your brother…" he added.

"You told my brother his virtual reality game was like a dress rehearsal for a dance? What did he say?" I asked, wishing I'd been a fly on the wall for that conversation.

"He didn't exactly say anything. He snorted."

I laughed. "Okay, I'll bite," I said. "I like riddles. Why is a virtual reality game like a dress rehearsal?"

I was joking, but Yugi surprised me by answering seriously. "I faced my demons in here and it was awesome to beat them, but just like with a dress rehearsal, it's what we do outside when it counts that matters."

* * *

 _  
**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter.**   
_

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** It feels a little odd to post a chapter without any Kaiba or Yami in it. But I felt like it was time to reconnect with their respective other halves, and it felt a bit unwieldy to try and cram everything in.

Yami doesn't remember his past, but ironically he's also the one responsible for the blank spots in Yugi's memory. In the early manga, Yugi has no memory of the penalty games, although he does have the uneasy feeling that there's something he should remember. It stuck me that that's an odd parallel between them. Once Yugi became aware of Yami, I can see him shying away from finding out the details of what happened during the times he didn't remember, and later I can honestly see recent events – like tournaments, kidnappings, and soul-stealings, crowding out older events.

 **Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my LJ account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated. As per FFNet's policy I can no longer post responses at the end of each chapter.

 _Comments would be adored…_


	22. Destiny Board Traveler

**CHAPTER 22: DESTINY BOARD TRAVELER**

 _Given how much time characters spend searching, it's surprising how often they don't like what they find. As King Arthur discovered, pulling a sword from a stone is easy, governing a kingdom while negotiating the joys and betrayals of love, friendship and family is not. For Tristan, finding Isolde, the perfect wife for his king, was easier than resisting her himself. Apollo chased down the nymph Daphne, but even the god of prophecy couldn't predict she'd turn into a tree just as he caught her in his arms. And when Luke Skywalker announced that he was ready to travel through the galaxy to find out who his father had been, I'm betting Darth Vader wasn't the dad he had in mind._

 _As difficult as the search can be, sometimes it's easier than figuring out what to do with the answer._

 _  
_

* * *

**YAMI'S NARRATIVE**

We'd marched all day, trying to cover as much ground as possible towards Yugi and Mokuba before the next challenge began. Except for an occasional grunt as he paused to check his map, Kaiba had been silent. Every now and then he'd reached for the GPS in his pocket before remembering it had been destroyed. He frowned slightly with each abortive movement. Around mid-day I caught his hand as he went for his pocket yet again.

"It's okay, Kaiba," I said. "Yugi will look after Mokuba. And you know how resourceful your brother is. You can trust him. He'll be fine."

Kaiba wrenched his hand from mine. "How dare you imply I don't trust my brother or think he's capable of taking care of himself. I know better than you just how resilient he is. Of course he can…" Kaiba stopped abruptly, realizing how neatly he'd been trapped. He glared at me and stalked off.

I managed to keep from laughing as I followed.

"None of that matters," Kaiba said.

"Of course it does," I answered. "Catch a clue, Kaiba. At this rate we're going to be stuck playing this game forever. Yugi will take care of Mokuba, not just because he promised, but because Mokuba is his friend. And he's not the only one. Anzu… Honda… even Jounouchi… they all like Mokuba." I snorted. "They like him a lot better than they like you, if it comes to that."

Kaiba laughed, then sobered and said, "That doesn't change anything. Mokuba's my responsibility. Mine."

"And you're living up to it," I answered.

"How can you say something that stupid? He's not even here!" Kaiba demanded. He sounded as combative as ever, but I suddenly wondered if he was looking for a fight – or if he just didn't know any other way of asking for reassurance.

"We've both agreed that Mokuba can take care of himself. Who do you suppose he learned that from?" I asked.

Kaiba didn't answer. But the brooding look left his face.

Temporarily.

A half hour later, I once again caught his hand as he reached for his pocket and the ruined GPS that weighed it down. He surprised me by briefly returning my clasp before saying, "Don't insult my brother, even to distract me."

"I didn't," I pointed out.

His lips twitched involuntarily as he started moving again. But I'd catch him looking at me after that. For once, he wasn't glaring. His gaze was, if anything, speculative, assessing. The glare only came as he realized I'd caught him staring. Each time I'd return his look with my most annoying smirk.

If this was a new game, I was starting to enjoy it. I longed to be reunited with Yugi. Kaiba was driven to find Mokuba. And yet, there was something special about being alone with Kaiba. The only thing that felt real anymore was the body this dream world had given me. For the first time I felt hunger… desire… and knew these things were mine. It was inexplicable, unexpected… but so were our lives now. It was all so immediate, and I craved sensation. Those moments when I grabbed Kaiba's hand… when I wondered if he was going to throw me off, when I wondered if he'd yield to my touch, when he allowed his hand to remain in mine a little longer each time… each one was so charged. I couldn't tell any longer if I was racing towards a past, a future, or simply standing, electrified, in an unpredictable present.

We finally stopped for the night. All day Kaiba had kept me anchored in the here and now. Seeing his face under a darkly golden sky reminded me… he'd been part of my unknown past as well. I'd challenged the Millennium Items once before to give up their secrets. I'd scared Mokuba badly. But I was with a different Kaiba now. One that would understand.

My gaze flicked from Kaiba to my backpack and back again. Reflected light from the amber sky had lent his pale skin a golden cast. Kaiba paced the ground, his fingers beating time against his long coat. I was struck by how graceful even his most casual movements were, how his fingers seemed to carry the promise of strength.

"Go ahead… you know you want to," Kaiba smirked.

"What?" I asked, startled.

"You keep looking at that backpack. You trying to tell me that you lugged your precious Millennium Items all the way here, and you haven't taken any of them out for a test drive yet?"

"I did. Once. With Mokuba. I saw a piece of my past. I went into a trance. Mokuba had to wake me. I don't know what would have happened if he hadn't been there."

"You're going to do it again," Kaiba said. It wasn't a question.

"I need to." I didn't explain further. It was a relief not to have to. "I might go into another trance. I'm not sure I'll be able to wake up on my own," I warned.

"So, I get to watch you fall into a coma instead of it being the other way around? Cool." I ignored the anticipatory grin on Kaiba's face. "Do you want me to wait for months before I try and wake you? Nah… I don't want to be bothered lugging your unconscious body around."

"Use your best judgment." I paused. "I'm trusting you," I added for good measure.

Kaiba nodded, letting me call his bluff without comment. "How does it work?" he asked.

I reached into the knapsack at random. My hand closed around the Millennium Eye. "The last time I simply concentrated on the Item, and then, suddenly I saw my past life."

I ignored Kaiba's groan. There was large, high flat stone in front of me. I sat cross-legged in front of it, placed the Millennium Eye in the center of its level surface. I rested my elbows on the stone, and leaned my chin into my cupped hands and starred at the Eye. Kaiba sat down next to me.

The woods faded away. I was in narrow hallway. Torchlight flickered on the sandstone walls. I couldn't shake the feeling that someone had worn the Millennium Eye and had stood here, hidden in the shadows, spying on the two men at the end of the entryway. One was Kaiba – or rather the ancient version of my rival. He was arguing with the man who became my Black Magician.

"Damn you, Mahaado! It's my right to face the Tomb Robber!" Kaiba yelled, sounding just as angry as the modern version. I looked at the Black Magician. Mahaado. I was glad to learn the name of the man who'd sacrificed his life for me. I wanted to remember him properly.

"The pharaoh thought otherwise, Seto," Mahaado said with a smirk that seemed calculated to further enrage the man facing him. "Seto," I whispered to myself. Their names were the same. I'd known Kaiba's given name of course. I'd never heard anyone call him by it, unless you counted Isono's deferential "Seto-sama." Now that I'd heard it, it remained on my tongue.

"You're his chief counselor, but as his High Priest, I'm his champion, not you! Especially in shadow duels. You know this. So does he," Seto insisted.

"How dare you call the pharaoh's decisions unjust?" Mahaado said incredulously. "You presume too far. As usual."

"Who cares about justice? I'm talking about power! I'm stronger than you and we both know it!" Seto thrust the Millennium Rod forward as if it was a weapon. I wondered if he was about to unsheathe the blade hidden within. It was hard to think of him as Seto and not Kaiba, as if their shared capacity for rage erased the millennia that separated them.

Mahaado shook his head, obviously too used to Seto's antics to be frightened by them.

"Every word you say confirms that the pharaoh made the right choice. This isn't about power, but the maturity to wield it wisely and with mercy. You stripped the power from your allies in our duel. Did you expect the pharaoh to reward that?" Mahaado shook his head. "I was against your becoming High Priest. You were the youngest member of our court, and the only one not born to the office or its responsibilities. It shows. You are powerful, Seto… but too heedless, too selfish, too blind to anything except your own will."

"Say that again and you won't need to wait for the Tomb Robber to kill you. I have proven my loyalty. And I defeated you. So why would the pharaoh chose the loser, and not the victor in our contest?" Seto paused. His shoulders bowed for a second before he straightened them and faced Mahaado unflinchingly once again. "Do you think his judgment of me matches yours?" he asked quietly.

Even in the dim light, even at a distance, I could see Mahaado's expression soften. The dislike between them had been real. Now I realized so was a measure of camaraderie and trust.

"Perhaps the pharaoh simply wanted to ensure your survival. One does not need Isis' necklace to foresee the likelihood of death in any encounter with the thief," Mahaado replied; the taunting note in his voice had vanished.

"That doesn't matter. Do you think me afraid of Bakura – or of death? It's my right as High Priest to die first in his defense," Seto said.

"You are a fool to take death so lightly," Mahaado chided. "I will gladly give up my life in the pharaoh's name and defense if called to do so, but I treasure it nonetheless. Anything else would be an insult to the gods who created us."

They were arguing over who had earned the privilege of dying for me. And I had once accepted that as my due. What else had I accepted? A town, Kul Elna, had burned. I looked at Seto and Mahaado. How far had they been willing to go in my defense – or on my orders? I shook my head, slightly ashamed of my thoughts. Doubting myself was one thing. I refused to doubt my friends. Mahaado had named Seto wild, reckless, stubbornly intent on his own will – that much hadn't changed. But I sensed no evil in Seto, then or now. And whatever Kaiba's own reservations about himself, he had never surrendered irrevocably to his own darkness. If he had, Kaiba would never have recovered from Death-T. But I had once had an entire court. Who were the others? Could any of them have done this thing?

"Live long, my rival," Mahaado said to Seto. "I fear you will need every year the gods grant you and more to gain wisdom."

Mahaado swept off into a tunnel. Once again I felt myself being dragged along in his wake, felt my grip on the present slipping away. I tried to hold on but the pull of the past was too strong. I fell forwards into darkness, only to be suddenly shocked awake, as if the present had reached backwards and punched me in the face.

"What?" I gasped. I looked at Kaiba. His face was very close to mine. He was holding me; my head was inches from the stone shelf I'd been resting my elbows on. I sat up. Kaiba let go of me. I rubbed my cheek, suddenly aware that it hurt.

"The quickest way to wake someone is by smacking them off balance," Kaiba explained.

"Is that the method you use on Mokuba?" I asked sourly, rubbing my cheek again.

Kaiba glared at me. "No." He paused. "I knew it would be effective. It always was." He stood up, swallowing whatever else he would have added. A muscle jumped in his jaw as though he'd tasted something bitter. Or was he trying to choke down a memory?

I stared at his averted face, realizing how little I knew him.

"I'm glad you caught me before my head hit that rock. It must have hurt when you crashed into your desk with no one to catch you," I said at a guess.

He looked at me, then shrugged. I'd noticed it before: usually Kaiba's shrugs were dismissive, but occasionally he did it when he couldn't bring himself to agree, but refused to lie.

"In the future, if you have a method you prefer, let me know," he said.

I let him evade my question, now that his gesture had given me all the answer I needed.

I smiled. "Last time, Mokuba threw water on me."

Kaiba laughed. "Now, that _is_ a method I've used on him." He paused again. "What happened?"

"Both times I've started as a spectator, seeing events play out as though watching from behind a wall of glass. Then… as the scene fades, so do I as though I'm following it directly into the past. Maybe I was not made to exist in both times at once."

"Which will you choose?" Kaiba asked. I was surprised at the harsh note in his voice.

"Until I know who I am, all choices are vain. Do you remember when we first came into this game, how we saw a town burst into flame? When I looked into the Millennium Ring the last time… I saw the man who became my Black Magician murdered. Afterwards his killer came here. I must have brought him into this game somehow. He told me I'd been responsible for burning his village – and his family. He lived in the town of Kul Elna."

"I don't believe him," Kaiba announced.

"How can you say that with such surety?" I demanded.

Kaiba's lips twisted in a smile so bitter it could have been a grimace. His fingers resumed their staccato tapping against his coat. "Even if you forgot everything else, you'd remember their faces; their cries would echo in your nightmares. The dead are not so easily silenced and forgotten."

"I hope there comes a time when you can lay yours to rest," I said quietly. I walked over to him and put my hand on his shoulder. I measured the similarities between this Seto and his namesake from the past. Both had stood tall, determined, adamantly focused on the path ahead, willfully blind to all else. I hadn't been close enough to see my High Priest's eyes. Kaiba's looked haunted.

"Yami," he said, looking at my hand. He swallowed. We stood in silence a moment longer, then Bakura arrived to break the impasse.

* * *

 **KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

It must have been the guy Yami had just talked about, the one who blamed Yami for his family's deaths. I recognized him, kind of. He looked like the kid from Battle City… if someone had carved up his face since we'd met and he'd gotten a whole lot crazier. I tried to match a name with the face. I remembered him lying in the hospital room on my Battle Blimp and at Alcatraz. I remembered everyone yapping at me that I had to get him to a hospital, as if everything needed wasn't already there. I remembered the mutt's even more boring sister practicing her pathetically under-developed manipulation skills, obviously thinking her useless tears were going to make me change my mind. What was the name she kept sobbing? Bakura. That was it.

For an instant, before he pasted on what was probably his habitually arrogant expression, he looked surprised.

"Ah… so the dance partners have switched. The pharaoh has been released from his babysitting duties, and has wasted no time tracking down his High Priest," he said.

"So you didn't know that before your arrival. Interesting," I countered.

"The Millennium Items call to me. I can find you whenever they're used – and you can't stop me. Otherwise we can no longer tell what's going on in this game. Your doing, I presume? The pharaoh's far too stupid to have meddled so effectively," Bakura said, nodding towards Yami.

I glanced at Yami and smirked. If gold-tipped stalks of hair could quiver with indignation, his would have. He'd drawn himself up to his negligible full height, looking like an outraged peacock, except the colors were wrong. Enemy or not, I was starting to enjoy this guy.

"You're Bakura. I'm sorry we never really met at Battle City. You're mildly more entertaining out of a coma than in it," I said.

"So are you," he answered. "But you met my shell, not me. I'm finally free of him… free to avenge the deaths of my family, of my sister, Amane. No! That was his sister's name, not mine. Damn him. How dare he grieve, turning my mourning into a commonplace affair? He's lucky I needed him. I could have killed him for that."

"So you're here again like a vulture picking over the ground for scraps," Yami said.

Great. Yami still sounded stuck in the past. I hoped he wasn't going to go all prehistoric on me.

"When one is at the bottom of the food chain, scraps are what provide the nourishment needed to grow strong enough to take revenge," Bakura replied.

I had to admit he didn't sound like anyone who'd grown up in Domino – or in the 20th century for that matter. I looked him over. The differences between him and the body I'd seen lying unconscious in my Battle Blimp bothered me.

"You have a scar now," I said.

"So?"

"You didn't have one back in Domino," I pointed out.

"So?" he repeated.

I shrugged. "I'm trying to figure out the mechanics of how this world works."

"You're in an alternative world, fueled through the power of ancient artifacts – and you're trying to _figure out the mechanics of how it works?_ " He laughed. "You haven't changed much in 3,000 years, and you don't even know it, you ignorant bastard. I'd forgotten how much fun it is to see you blunder stupidly onwards, to watch you charge stubbornly into my traps. How much fun it is to beat you, to see that pride humbled before the Thief King."

Great. Not just a psycho, but one who thought he knew me.

"Get real. I remember all my duels, no matter how pathetic the opponent," I told him.

"We dueled 3,000 years ago."

"Who won?" I asked.

Bakura grinned. "I did, of course."

I grinned back. "Then you've never dueled _me_."

Yami broke in, saying, "You keep taunting me with the flames of Kul Elna… they're here because of you."

"You will burn in them," he promised.

"I searched Kul Elna. There's no record of it – archeological databases, museum servers – nothing. Whatever Kul Elna was, it's been wiped off the map," I said.

"Yes! It's as if it never existed… as if my family, my sister, my brother, had never walked the earth. But before I'm done, you will all remember!"

Unwillingly, I felt some sympathy… had from the moment he'd said the word "brother." If anything happened to Mokuba, how far would I go to avenge him? I pushed down this unwanted fellow-feeling. Thinking of Mokuba reminded me I had a job to do. I needed information and pissing Bakura off was the best way to get it.

"So… it must suck to be you," I sneered.

"I will enjoy seeing you suffer! I hope your brother dies first. Isn't that the way it works, Pharaoh? The young and defenseless always are the first."

I barely held on to my temper. I was glad he was the enemy. But something was bothering me, and for once, anger hadn't overwhelmed every other thought. "You think you have some kind of a grudge match going on here. But you're not attacking. Why?" I asked.

Yami laughed. "Your brother asked him the same thing," he told me.

I bit back a smile. I was proud of Mokuba. He'd zeroed in on the most salient point in this whole meeting.

"Who's holding your leash?" I asked.

I could see it in his face. I'd gotten it right. For whatever reason he couldn't attack. And now, if he didn't want to look even weaker than he already did, he had to give some answer and it couldn't be lame. He wasn't going to back down. Unwillingly, that flash of sympathy was back.

"My master, Zorc, has other plans. Why should we risk our lives when the game you set up will kill you for us? I am willing to wait," he said

"If you want to convince me of that load of bullshit you should at least try to look happy about sitting on the sidelines," I said.

"I will be ecstatic when you die," he said as he disappeared.

"Another puzzle," Yami said.

I nodded. This place seemed full of them.

"I wonder," Yami said. "Was anything he said true?"

I frowned. "In any war, helpless children are the first to die. That much is always true."

"What if it was done in my name?" he whispered.

Trust Yami to head unerringly for the heart of the matter – and to refuse to stop or accept any detours along the way. And he was right. I would have staked my life that he hadn't murdered a village full of innocent children. But I couldn't swear that no one had made him an accessory to their actions. Even if it had been without his knowledge… that wouldn't weigh with me. I didn't expect technical innocence to count with him either.

"It's possible," I agreed.

"What do I do then?" he asked.

"Live with it. Accept responsibility." I shrugged. There wasn't much else to say.

Yami held out his hand slightly blindly. I took it. It felt strange. I hadn't held anyone's hand since Mokuba had gotten old enough to cross streets by himself. This felt different. Despite our size difference, Yami's hand was almost as large as mine. His skin should have felt new, but it didn't. It felt like it had been exposed to rain and sun – linen and not silk. Our fingers were intertwined. His thumb rubbed the arch between my own thumb and my forefinger. I'd never realized how sensitive that spot was. My hand felt frozen in place; all my senses zeroed in on the millimeter circle of skin that his thumb kept circling.

"I hope when I find the truth, whatever it is, I can face it as unflinchingly as you," he said.

"You will," I promised.

He was still holding my left hand. I raised my right one to his face, curious now. The spot where his cheek met his hair had all the softness I'd failed to find in his hand. I let my fingers run down his face, just as he'd done to mine. Would repeating his actions exorcise them from my mind? Or did I just hate the thought of his being one-up on me no matter the endeavor. Or was it simpler? Was I standing here, stock still because the feel of his skin against mine was enough to hold me immobile?

"Kaiba…" Yami said.

The harsh syllables of my name worked as well as an alarm clock. My right hand fell away from his face; our hands slid apart.

Yami sighed. He sounded bone weary. Before he'd started in on the Millennium Items we'd been ready to take turns sleeping.

"You look tired," he said.

"You look worse," I countered. "And who was it that said only a fool would keep going on without resting?"

Yami sighed again and got ready to take his turn to sleep. I grinned. He'd either had to do what I said or admit he was a hypocrite. As far as I was concerned it was a win-win situation.

At first I figured Yami was only pretending to sleep, but he went down for the count pretty quickly. Once he wouldn't have dared close his eyes in my presence. He'd said we'd moved beyond that. I didn't mind seeing the proof.

It was strange, having him next to me. He looked different asleep. He still didn't look like Yugi, but with those crimson eyes closed, with his hair half hiding his face… it was like seeing a different part of him, the part that trusted me. I sat down next to him. With his face softened by sleep, with one hand peeking out of his blanket, it was hard to turn away.

I'd studied desire as a motivating factor too thoroughly to fail to recognize it now – even in myself.

I'd always been able to push aside anything that didn't further my goals – and right now I shouldn't be thinking of anything but Mokuba. I knew that. But it seemed that desire, like Yami himself, couldn't be ordered around that easily. Or maybe this charged up feeling wasn't leaving because I didn't really want it to go. That's what made it dangerous. That's what made Yami dangerous.

I should be angry at myself for noticing the curve of Yami's cheek in the dim light, for remembering how soft it had felt, for wanting to touch him again – when Mokuba was out there, somewhere. I knew that too. But distracting as Yami was, he wasn't taking my attention away from my brother. I thought of Yami grabbing my hand each time I reached for my GPS tracker. I don't know how much time I would have wasted being angry that I had nothing left to go on but my hunches to find Mokuba, how much time I would have thrown away on being furious at myself for carrying around a ruined GPS tracker I couldn't bring myself to ditch, but somehow Yami's touch forestalled that… somehow it had kept me focused. And that was dangerous too. It was one thing to admit that Yami was reliable, another entirely to actually let myself rely on him.

I'd never spent this much time with anyone but Mokuba before – and Yami wasn't my brother. I dropped my hand to Yami's shoulder as he lay next to me. As slim as he was, there was strength in the curve of his bicep under the soft wool of his coat. It was strange admitting it even to myself, but I liked this feeling. It had all the exultation, all the dangerous attraction of standing on the ledge of Pegasus' tower, but without the despair. I wondered if Yami felt the same thing when he hugged me so tightly to him, when he grabbed my hand as though he had a right to it.

Yami mumbled something and moved a little closer. He didn't open his eyes. The night air was cool; maybe he was instinctively seeking warmth and I was the nearest source of heat. Or maybe after millennia of non-existence he needed to touch the world around him even in sleep, and I was just part of the landscape. It was hard to tell if I was more than scenery to him; after all, I'd seen the guy fondle flowers with the same intensity. Even more to the point, did I want him to mean every fleeting (for lack of a better word) caress he'd offered?

I thought of Gozaburo taunting me, sneering that I was Yami's bitch. And here I was tied up in knots, freezing every time Yami touched me, staring at him wondering what was going on every time he didn't, comfortable only when he was asleep. This feeling was everything I hated and yet I wasn't fighting back. Just the thought of trusting Yami, of wanting him when I'd never wanted anything before made me want to scream, to smack him awake again so we could get in a fight and get back to the status quo I knew I didn't want anymore. Then at least I'd be in control again and I wasn't sure what else there was.

As if in answer, Yami shifted again in his sleep. His head ended up pillowed on my thigh, his torso was half on my leg. His arms moved up to my waist. I froze again, afraid he'd wake up enough to realize what he was doing and let go. I liked the weight of his head against my hip, the feeling of being in his arms. Given the size difference between us, as a blanket he was inadequate. I was warmed nonetheless. Had I ever been held? My mother must have… supposedly mothers do. I knew enough to know this wasn't the same.

But on the score of affection, I was almost as much of an amnesiac as Yami himself.

* * *

 _  
**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter.**   
_

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** In an odd way Yami in this chapter and Yugi in the last are confronting the same thing: what to do if you have the uneasy feeling that things might have been done in your name without your knowledge?

I also think there are some parallels between Yami and Kaiba that come up the more time they spend together. Yami has just gained a body and is unused to physical contact; but Kaiba is just as unused to the idea this can be a pleasant thing or something he wants in his life. And where Yami is unused to physical feelings, Kaiba is just as unused to acknowledging emotional ones. There's a fine line though between having Kaiba sound conflicted, frustrated, and wary and disturbed by how he's feeling and having him sound whiny and I tried to stay on the right side of that line.

 **High Priest Seto/Kaiba Note:** At this point I can easily see Yami blurring the two of them together in his thoughts, especially when his high priest starts ranting.

 **Bakura Note:** I find the idea interesting that possibly Bakura's drive for revenge is being partly about wanting to avoid grief and loss. His family died horrifically and he was the only survivor. I think having a mission of avenging them gives meaning to that survival, in a way it makes it easier for him to accept that he did survive. Also, as long as he's focused on avenging his family in a way, he's carrying them along with him as he travels through the millennia.

 **Apollo Note:** Apollo is more commonly known as the god of music. But he was also the patron deity for the Oracle at Delphi.

 **Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my LJ account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated. As per FFNet's policy I can no longer post responses at the end of each chapter.

 _Comments would be adored…_


	23. Tactical Evolution

**CHAPTER 23: TACTICAL EVOLUTION**

 _Quests usually follow paths that are beautiful in their simplicity – even when the road itself is barred by the expected horde of giants, ogres or orcs. But sometimes, for some unlucky seekers, that wonderfully linear path from a story's beginning to its end suddenly shatters before their disbelieving eyes. It's one thing to gird your courage before storming into a troll's lair, another to be totally clueless as to where that one special troll infested cave lies or how to find it – or worse, to be so completely consumed by each day's tasks that you've started to lose sight of just why you were looking for the ugly fellow in the first place._

 _The last chapter in "The Fellowship of the Ring" is well named: "The Breaking of the Fellowship." For while Frodo and Sam continue on their appointed route, their companions discover other missions. As Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli race off to rescue their comrades, Merry and Pippin find themselves on the oldest, simplest quest of all: survival._

 **NOA'S NARRATIVE**

I tried to find Seto. When I saw Mokuba I wanted to be able to tell him I'd seen his brother. Something had changed in the game though. I could kind of sense Seto and I was pretty sure he was okay or at least alive, but I couldn't get a fix on him clearly enough to pinpoint his location. A wall of static sprung up every time I tried.

I decided to see Mokuba anyway. Mokuba was thinking about me. That made him easier to find and I figured it counted as an invitation. I flushed, remembering Seto taunting me, sneering that I needed to bring Mokuba a bribe. It wasn't like that, not totally, even Seto knew that, but hearing him say it, hearing the words, had hurt anyway. But even though I didn't have any news for him, Mokuba would be glad to see me. He'd said so. I was nervous though. I didn't want to be wrong. Not about Mokuba.

When Mokuba and Yami had been together, I'd always waited until Yami was asleep before approaching Mokuba. But Yugi was different. He was the nicest of the bunch. He didn't look surprised to see me. Mokuba must have told him.

Mokuba ran forward then stopped. I liked the way he forgot each time I wasn't solid enough to hug. Even better, he asked how I was doing and told me he'd missed me before adding, "Have you seen Nisama?"

I shook my head, hating to disappoint him. "I'm pretty sure I'd know if anything bad happened, but he's harder to find. I found you because you were thinking about me, it's like it's a homing signal and I can follow it back to you."

"So if Nisama thinks about you then you can help us find each other?" Mokuba asked eagerly.

"I'm not sure," I said. I didn't add that the chances that Seto would be thinking about me were less than zero. "I could tell him where you're headed, but I don't think I could call up a map and pinpoint their location for you."

I was glad of that actually. If it really was that easy, it'd be one more thing I was hiding from my dad, one more way I was going against what he wanted.

"Your brother's added a whole bunch of things," I said.

" _Our_ brother," Mokuba corrected.

"Seto," I said, compromising on using his given name. "It's pretty much impossible for anyone to find you now. Not that that freak in here with us has tried. He's so sure he's going to win, that the game's going to kill you all. He figures when it's done its job, he can just take the VR pods you came here in and escape. He's not even bothering noticing anything you guys do."

"Who is he? What's he like?"

"He says his name is Zorc. He's huge! And he's not human. He looks like something out of a horror movie, kind of like this god of mummies or something – only he's the real thing. His headdress is half the size of my body. And he's got this gigantic snake coming out of his loincloth."

Mokuba and Yugi looked at each other.

"Weird," Yugi agreed.

"That sounds kind of funny. Like a snake where his dick should be?" Mokuba giggled.

Yugi started chuckling. Put like that it did sound funny. But nobody who ever saw Zorc would think he was a joke.

"He's really crazy mean. I wish he wasn't here. He's just… creepy," I said. I knew I wasn't making myself clear, but maybe my face got the message across better than my words because Mokuba took one look at me and sobered up real quick.

"Wow, you're hanging around someone even scarier than your father?" he said.

I got why Mokuba felt that way. He was thinking of his brother. But that wasn't totally my dad's fault. Seto had thrown himself in my father's path. No one who did that escaped unscathed. Even my mom.

My dad hadn't always been like that. I remembered him putting me on my first horse; remembered him watching each horse show with pride; remembered him celebrating with me in the winner's circle afterwards. And the one time I'd come in second, he hadn't scolded. He'd agreed it was my horse's fault, not mine. I skimmed past the rest of that memory, as I did so often with my father. I'd never seen Champion again. I'd never given another horse a name. My father had never asked why.

I wondered if families were just weird or if I hadn't been part of one long enough to figure it out. My father had been nice to me; he'd been proud of me. He'd come to me in the hospital. He'd ordered me not to die. It had been the first time I'd ever disobeyed him. Now I wondered, was he madder at me for dying or for ignoring his command? Whose version of my father was the accurate one – Mokuba's or mine?

I was the sum of my memories. Without them I had no existence. I'd once sneered at Seto that unlike him, my memory was perfect, unchangeable, untainted by emotion, hopes or fears. But now I realized how much was missing nonetheless. Total recall is not the same thing as total understanding. I needed to know, not just what my memories said, but how to interpret their message.

For the first time, I hoped Seto would think of me. I wanted to see him and not just so I could bring Mokuba a bribe. Mokuba was my brother. Seto had been my opponent. But sometimes an opponent will tell you things that a brother won't.

* * *

 **YAMI'S NARRATIVE**

Nothing made sense. I had to be dreaming. Kaiba and I faced each other across an expanse, as big as a dueling field. Our positions remained the same but the setting kept changing. First, I was in Kaiba's soul room. My surroundings were dark, formless. Kaiba shone like a beacon, drawing me closer. Once again, he wasn't the child I'd seen when I'd entered his soul room after Death-T, but the teenager he'd grown into. His eyes, though, remained the same… wide-set, intent… I'd never been sure that day if he'd stared at me hoping for death or salvation.

Before I could decide the scene changed. I was in white linen robes. My legs were bare. A golden breastplate weighed down my shoulders, matching the jeweled belt around my waist. Kaiba – or was it my High Priest – faced me in blue and gold robes, his golden headdress making him appear even taller. Once again his eyes were fixed on mine, but it was impossible to read their expression in the flickering candlelight. I stared at him through the ever-moving wall of Kuribo that separated us.

Suddenly, I blinked in the sunlight. The Kuribo were still there. Kaiba was standing on the edge of Pegasus' tower, waiting for my next move to kill him. I wondered what he was staring at so fixedly… Mokuba or the final proof that losing meant death? That moment… that instant before I ordered my monster to attack, that second before Kaiba took his final step backwards, was endless.

I gasped and woke up. My face was buried in Kaiba's lap of all places. My arms were around his waist; I was sprawled down the length of his legs. My body tightened; my face flushed; I was suddenly uncomfortably hot. I vaguely remembered this sensation, but I'd only felt it second hand before, from Yugi, whenever he'd gotten caught staring at Anzu. I scrambled off of Kaiba. The night air was cool. Maybe that was why I felt a sense of loss now that I was no longer pressed against him. I met his gaze, hoping none of my own confusion would show. Kaiba's expression was as indecipherable as in my dream.

"I haven't had a nightmare since before I can remember. It seems strange to dream here," I said to him.

Kaiba shrugged. "You sleep, you have nightmares." He paused. "What was it about?"

"I'm not sure. We were atop Pegasus' tower. We weren't dueling. I looked at you. I didn't know what we were doing up there. We were waiting for something. I don't know what. Then I woke up."

"Unfinished business," Kaiba said.

"What?" I asked, startled. The dream had felt just like that, a feeling that seemed to linger.

"We never really finished that duel, that day. We've never really finished it since. There's always been a sense of unfinished business between us, no matter how often we duel." He paused. "Is that why you brought me back after Duelist Kingdom? Unfinished business? You didn't have to make me part of your deal with Pegasus. You could have rescued Yugi's grandfather and even my brother without me."

"What? How could you think I'd do that?" I asked.

"Why not?" he countered, suddenly, inexplicably, irritated. "You're not going to pretend we were friends back then, are you?"

"We've never been enemies, not since Death-T… and your brother was counting on me. I know how hard he struggled to bring himself to trust us," I said, realizing as I uttered the words that they weren't the whole truth, that I would never have abandoned Kaiba.

"I should have known. My brother got you to promise. At least that's one problem solved." Kaiba laughed. I winced at the bitterness in his voice.

"No. I mean, yes, I did promise, but I would have done it anyway," I said, frustrated at how quickly this conversation was turning ugly.

"Bullshit! You just admitted as much. I can accept that Yugi would have tried to save me, because that's how he is. But you're not him. So why would you? Why did my life matter?" Kaiba was yelling at this point; he dropped his hands to my shoulders as if he didn't know what to do with them.

"Because you see no value in your life except as a tool to be used and discarded, no one else is allowed to either? You don't owe me for bringing you back after Duelists Kingdom anymore than I owe you for destroying your Blue Eyes White Dragon to save me. Can we please stop keeping score?"

"How do you not keep score?" Kaiba laughed again but I wasn't fooled. His question was serious. I answered as honestly as I could.

"I'm not sure."

Kaiba's hands were still on my shoulders. I suddenly needed to touch him in return. I reached up and cupped his thin cheek with my hand. He leaned slightly into my palm; his eyes were troubled.

I looked past him, noticing for the first time the lines of computer code written in white against the sky's dark amber background.

"What were you doing?" I asked.

"Working," he said, turning his head. My hand slid off his face. He dropped his hands from my shoulders and gestured towards the sky-writing around us. "Yugi and Mokuba won a challenge. They're alive. Or at least they were." Kaiba sighed with relief. "I should have told you at once."

"How do you know?"

"Any time any of us win, I can change something. It doesn't matter which of us it is…"

"The power of unity in action," I said with a smile.

"Whatever."

I rolled my eyes. I'd given up expecting Kaiba to just accept that he was part of a team without offering at least a token protest.

"What change are you making?" I asked.

He grimaced. "It's a long shot. It doesn't even make sense… wasting a change on something this dicey."

"But you're going to anyway?"

He glared at me. I suppose it was an answer.

"Go with your heart, Kaiba," I urged.

"You're like a computer program stuck in a continuous loop. There's no point in exchanging Yugi for you if all you're going to do is sound like him," he said, irritated.

I held my tongue. I wanted Kaiba to start listening to his heart but nothing would make that less likely than to order him to do so.

He scowled, glared some more and finally said, "I thought of something you and Yugi keep going on about… you know… about trust…"

"You can trust Yugi to take care of Mokuba," I assured him.

"That's not what I meant." He stared at the codes in front of him, then made his alterations.

"Change completed," the game announced as the codes disappeared once again.

"I can't delete any of Gozaburo's additions to my program," Kaiba announced suddenly.

"What? But the computer just said, 'Change completed.' And you've been adding things all along," I said.

"Yes. I've been _adding_ things. I can't delete a single fucking line."

My confusion must have been as obvious as the codes that had just filled the night sky, because Kaiba shook his head impatiently.

"When I knew I was going to be playing this game with Mokuba – not to mention adapting it as a theme park attraction, I added a safety system. Gozaburo disabled it, returning the game to its default level."

"Which, I assume, was uniformly lethal?" I asked.

Kaiba nodded.

"You just can't get away from your adoptive father's last words – that losing equals death – can you? You can't let them go," I said.

Kaiba gestured to the world around us. "I can't erase anything he's done, period. I can't rip out his changes to this game, make it like they never happened, like he never happened, like we never met. I can't reactivate the safety system, I can't over-write his disabling it. What's been done can't be undone."

His fists were clenched at his sides. He stood straight, glaring at the sky as if his adoptive father was there, somewhere unseen.

"I know you well enough to know that's not the whole answer," I said. Kaiba smiled briefly in response, a twitch of his lips that barely warmed his eyes.

"Piece by piece, line by line of coding, I'm trying to rewrite my way around his changes. If I can do that, can find away around the roadblocks he's left me, find a way to work with the parts of the game that are indisputably mine…" he said insistently, then paused, uncomfortable with the intensity, with the honesty in his own words. When he started talking again his voice was crisp, as though he was explaining a minor problem in computer coding, as though we'd never been talking about anything else.

"The game's calibrated so that each challenge reflects the individual player's thoughts, mood and outlook. I can't change the overall level of danger, but I managed to alter the balance of the game slightly. Now it will factor in each player's personality when setting the lethality level as well as in devising the challenges themselves. I couldn't lower the overall danger level of the game itself… but now it doesn't have to throw the most deadly challenge possible at every player, every time." He paused again. "Yugi's a duelist. I know that. But he's different. He doesn't look on life as a series of deadly trials." Kaiba shrugged. "It probably won't affect us much, but…"

"But if it responds to Yugi, the challenges will be kinder, more merciful! Kaiba, it's brilliant!" I said.

He frowned. "It's so fucking stupid. Ever since I've known Yugi, I've waited for his ridiculous naiveté – his ludicrous belief in people, that things will work out, that faith makes a difference – to stomp him flat. And here I am hoping that the same beliefs I find nauseating will help pull them through this safely."

"It will. I'm sure of it. An intention so generous can't fail. See what happens when you have faith, when your trust your heart?"

"Spare me your self-important platitudes. They're boring. How dare you offer reassurance as if I'm too weak to stand without it? You're the one who faints like a girl in a horror movie every time you catch a glimpse of your past, not me. Tell me, pharaoh," Kaiba snarled, turning the title I didn't remember into a sneer, "Do you just say this falsely confident shit to keep from admitting you haven't got a clue what to do next?"

Trust Kaiba to rub my face in my own uncertainty. I knew he was lashing out because he'd just talked about adoptive father, however obliquely. I knew anger was his default setting just as lethality had been this game's. It didn't matter. I hated this out-of-control feeling as much as he did.

"Why did you go to all the trouble of creating this game, if you know all the answers, anyway?" I yelled, my face flaming with anger. "Oh that's right. You don't. You're the one that can't even figure out how to win the game you designed to rid yourself of your own inner demons."

"Fuck you, Yami. Like you're any better."

The look of outrage on his face was priceless. I remembered it from dozens of duels – the ones we'd played against each other, the ones where I'd stood on the sidelines and watched him win. It reminded me that Kaiba had stood beside me in support as well as in opposition; it reminded me that I'd promised myself to fight _for_ Kaiba as well as against him.

I laughed suddenly. "No, we're as evenly matched as ever."

Kaiba gave a reluctant grin, appeased as usual, by the reminder I acknowledged us as equals.

"We've been so busy with each challenge, we haven't had time to take on the game itself. Every change I've made has been about survival, not winning," he said. "Face it Yami, we haven't been playing this game, it's been playing us. How does it feel, King of Games – that is the title you go by, isn't it – admitting you don't have a clue how to beat this one?"

He looked at me expectantly – ready, as always, to continue our fight. But I thought of him patiently editing his program, never able to erase a line of Gozaburo's additions, but changing it nonetheless… I thought of this latest change, how Yugi and Mokuba's natures were going to be their own best protection…

I held up my hand for silence. To my surprise Kaiba obeyed.

"Maybe it's not about beating this game, but understanding it. And maybe we're starting to do just that," I said slowly.

Kaiba groaned. "I change my mind. I prefer self righteous speeches to mystical bullshit. Of course I understand it; I've got every line of code memorized by now. Even the ones that bastard changed."

"But look at the way you're changing it – not by trying futilely, over and over, to blast Gozaburo's additions to dust, but by adapting – by learning a new way of refusing to let yourself be beaten. Look at the challenges, the way the game shows us what we came in here seeking… we've been talking like this game is as much our enemy as Zorc or Gozaburo. What if it isn't?"

"Of course it's not our enemy. It's not alive. It's a computer program. It can't think or feel or do anything other than what it's programmed to do. Anyway, the last time I checked it's been trying to kill us. Is that your idea of friendship?" Kaiba scoffed.

"Sometimes. It's your game. Did you expect it to surrender without a fight? But it's also showing us things we never realized, never imagined. It's hard… being separated from your other half, wondering what you've done, what our next move is, no longer even sure what winning means… but I believe it will be worth it in the end."

Kaiba grunted in place of an answer. I didn't press him. I knew as well as he how uncomfortably unsettling uncertainty could be.

"The one thing I know," Kaiba said, "is whatever it takes, we're going to win."

"Agreed," I said. "So why were we fighting?"

"Because it's easier," Kaiba answered, frowning. He sat down near his bedroll.

I looked down at my hands, flexed them, felt the muscles clench and relax. I drew in a breath, held it in my lungs for a second then let it go. Kaiba was right. In some ways fighting was easier. Before Zorc, before Gozaburo, Kaiba and I had begun this game looking for answers. Now for me, it was the questions that had shifted. I'd entered this game to find my past, but that wasn't all I wanted. Now I was searching for more than my memories. I was searching for myself. For the first time I felt alive. With increasing urgency, I wanted to become. What then, in this new quest, did winning mean?

I sat down next to Kaiba, leaning slightly against his shoulder. Maybe it was the near darkness which made the conversation seem intimate. Even when we'd been shouting, it had felt like we were exchanging confidences. I thought back to the first time Yugi had seen Kaiba. He'd been reading a book, seemingly ignoring everything around him, including the lesson.

"Why Domino High School?" I asked suddenly, realizing how odd it was that Kaiba, with all his responsibilities, had been sitting in class that day, how close I'd come to never knowing him – or had our meeting been fated?

"It was my local high school," he said shortly.

I'd been asking why he'd bothered with school at all, but Kaiba had taken my question much more literally.

"It was?" I asked, confused. I thought I was familiar with Domino's geography. "Your mansion's pretty far away. There wasn't a closer school?"

I was surprised to see him flush slightly.

"Not now. Where I would have gone if… where I lived before."

I kept my face neutral, afraid he'd walk off again or pick another fight. Of all the answers I could have imagined, the true one – that he'd felt an impulse to attend the school he vaguely remembered from that far off childhood before Gozaburo – was the most unexpected.

For once, sitting side by side on the ground, we were near the same height. Without thought I leaned in to hug him, as I'd so often wanted to hug Yugi. I should have remembered though: Kaiba wasn't Yugi. As soon as I held him this close, smelled him… I wanted another sensation: taste. My face was nestled against Kaiba's neck, half buried in his long hair. Without thought, my lips closed around the edge of his ear, my tongue briefly traced the ridges in its side. The quick intake of Kaiba's breath seemed to echo. As I moved, not sure if I was drawing back or coming closer, my lips brushed across Kaiba's cheek, caught the edge of his mouth. My tongue flicked out again. His lips were surprisingly soft. Kaiba turned slightly towards me. For an instant… a moment that passed too quickly for certainty, my tongue caressed the inside of his lower lip. I broke contact abruptly, as though once again, I'd been shocked out of a dream.

Kaiba stared at me; the whites of his eyes gleamed in the dim light. His breath seemed to whistle as it left his now opened mouth. He looked startled, the way he always did when I turned over the winning card in our duels. But I didn't want him to look lost; it held me back as surely as the hint of vulnerability in his posture, in those slightly parted lips, drew me forwards.

I was awake. I knew that; I clung to it. And yet, this felt like my dream, as if days could pass and Kaiba and I would still be staring at each other under a changing golden sky.

"Kaiba…" I said, wondering how often I'd said his name in the past few days, each time without having any idea what would come next.

"It's late," he announced, as though we'd been having a business meeting that had run past its appointed time.

"It was already late when we started talking," I said, annoyed Kaiba had dismissed what had almost happened this easily. I looked at him more closely. No not easily; there was a tension to his figure, a hint he was holding himself here by force of will. Even the night air around him seemed to grow darker.

Kaiba noticed it too.

"Shit. It figures he's coming back, now," Kaiba said. Then he grinned and the ice in his smile could have frozen a lava flow. "On the other hand perhaps for once he's showing up at exactly the right time."

"What's going on?" I asked.

"The Wicked Worm Beast. Stand back. He's mine," Kaiba snarled, staring at the form just beginning to separate itself from the gloom that surrounded it. Kaiba called in his katana and waited. The outline of the Wicked Worm Beast's tentacles was still blurred when Kaiba began his attack. His first strike sliced the Wicked Worm Beast in half the instant he finished materializing. The monster was dead before he toppled to the ground, but Kaiba didn't – or couldn't – stop. He exchanged his katana for two shorter blades and moved closer, hacking the torso in front of him to pieces, severing the now unmoving tentacles. He finally finished, grunting as he stood up. He sent his knives back to his inventory and kicked his bedroll away from the Wicked Worm Beast's remains.

"Whoever thought I'd be grateful for that stupid computer glitch," he said.

"Computer glitch?" I repeated.

"The Wicked Worm Beast. He's still following me around." Kaiba threw back his head and laughed. "At least he came in handy."

We'd almost kissed… at least I thought we had. I was pretty sure I'd wanted to, although coming that close had left me speechless. It seemed to have made Kaiba want to kill something. No matter what Kaiba was feeling, anger would always be his first reaction. But what would his second be? What did I want?

I sighed. Perhaps the morning would provide answers.

Kaiba looked at me. "Are you still tired? You didn't finish your turn asleep."

I shook my head. "I did, near enough. Get some sleep yourself. As you said, only a fool would go into tomorrow unrested."

Kaiba smiled but the look he shot me was full of uncertainty. No… he hadn't dismissed anything. He'd merely tried, as usual, to push aside – or kill – whatever confusion, whatever vulnerability, he was feeling.

"Yami," he said. He stopped, shrugged, nodded, then lay down. He turned on his side, facing slightly away from me, huddled into his blanket. I waited a few minutes, then moved until his face was partly in view. I watched the rise and fall of his chest. It was too regular, too controlled for slumber, but after a while his pretense of sleep became a reality. I kept staring. He was twitching a little in his sleep; his face scrunched up, like a child's. I wondered if he was having a nightmare. A mumbled word escaped his lips. I leaned in closer.

"Hurts…" he whispered.

I leaned back. I'd been about to wake him. Now intruding on his nightmare seemed like the greater danger. I turned away from Kaiba, then jerked my head up to see a small child regarding me. Somehow I knew that he was eleven – the same age Mokuba had been when we'd met. The boy's thoughts, as usual, were hidden behind inexpressive blue eyes.

He was a neatly dressed little phantom, with his shirt collar tucked into his vest.

I looked away from this younger Seto to double-check that Kaiba, the real one, was still sleeping at my side.

"What are you?" I asked.

He ignored me. He looked around. I wondered what my little apparition was searching for.

"Why are you here?" I asked.

He brushed off my questions for one of his own. "Where's Mokuba?" he demanded.

"He's with my partner."

He turned to glare at Kaiba. "He didn't protect Mokuba?"

"He has!" I said angrily.

"Then why isn't Mokuba here?"

"Mokuba's fine. He's with my partner," I repeated.

"Mokuba should be here. How can he be fine?

"He is. Trust me."

His eyes narrowed. The jaded adult expression looked startlingly out of place on his rounded child's face.

"You can't trust anyone. That's the first rule. Anyone who says different is just looking for a weakness. Did you think I'd forget that, or that because I'm short you can trick me? Mokuba's the only exception. He needs to be _here._ "

"It's okay," I repeated, but he wasn't listening.

"There's only two ways people disappear. They abandon you or they die. Mokuba would never cut out on me."

Just for an instant his lip quivered, before he got it under control.

I couldn't get through to him, couldn't comfort him. He couldn't hear anything but the fear and grief in his own mind.

"I'm your friend, Seto," I said.

"Seto-s _ama_ ," he said proudly. "That's what everyone calls me now."

I shook my head in exasperated amusement at the smug note in his high pitched voice.

"Even friends?" I asked.

Seto snorted, sounding remarkably like the teenager he'd grow into. "Friends? What are they? Anyway, if you really were my friend, you'd know Mokuba is all that matters. That's why I did it, why I challenged _him_ to that chess game. Everyone laughed. But I showed them. I knew I'd win. I knew he'd adopt us and everything would be all right." For the first time a look of doubt crossed his face. "It was the only way. And Mokuba's safe. He's with me. That's all that matters, right?"

I wanted to shout, "No! _You_ matter. There had to have been another way, if only you hadn't been so damn quick to jump at the first option that presented itself!"

Then I looked at my little phantom and the words died unspoken. I thought about how Kaiba had retreated each time I'd reached out to him. In the whole time I'd known him, for all his arrogance, his sneering disdain of everyone around him, Kaiba had never once acted like his life mattered, like it was more than the meaningless chip he kept naming it. And if even his life didn't matter, how could he give weight to his desires? Here was a problem that might be beyond any game's reach. I looked at my little phantom again. Or was the game trying to call in reinforcements to help?

"As important as Mokuba is, he's not the only one whose well-being matters," I said as gently as I could.

"What else is there?" he asked as his eyes widened in surprise.

"You," I answered.

"I can take care of myself. Mokuba can't. My mom said that being a big brother is the most important job in the world," Seto announced proudly.

"I'm sure she knows what how hard you've tried."

"How could she? She's dead. I know that. And trying doesn't count. Only succeeding. Mokuba roots for me to win and I'm not letting him down."

"He doesn't root for you to win… he simply cheers you on – and he'd do it whether you won or lost."

"Stop trying to confuse me! Mokuba's counting on me. And he's not here! But he wouldn't leave me. He's mine," he said stubbornly.

"He didn't leave you. You just got separated."

"Then it's his fault," he said, turning to glare at Kaiba again. "He lost Mokuba. The penalty for losing is death. He deserves it."

I shivered, suddenly sure that the malicious words being uttered so implacably by my little phantom reverberated through Kaiba's life, through each waking moment, a drumbeat that accompanied his every step. It made a kind of hideous sense that Kaiba clung to his corrosive beliefs so strongly – and that I'd been so powerless to help him break free – now that I heard each destructive sentiment parroted back to me by the child he'd been, by the child he still carried somewhere inside himself.

I glared at Seto, angry with him for being so unforgiving, for riding Kaiba so hard and with so little cause. I remembered Mokuba saying that mine had not been the first penalty game Kaiba had played – and wondered if he'd been his own most merciless opponent.

"Stop it! You have no right to say those things!" I yelled at the boy, hoping the older version could hear me as well.

"Don't I?" he said.

He walked away; every step was an invitation. I looked at Kaiba. He was sleeping quietly now. Reassured, I followed.

My little phantom grinned at me like he'd just won.

"If you really believe that he deserves to live, why do you keep coming back here?" Seto asked. He smiled tauntingly once more and disappeared.

"Yami!" Kaiba – the older one – called out. He ran towards me.

I looked from Kaiba to the blank patch of night where his younger self had been. Nothing remained. I turned to face Kaiba. I was surprised by an impulse to use his given name.

Abruptly, the scene had changed. Instead of a forest clearing, we were on Pegasus' tower again.

"What's going on? Why are we here on Pegasus' tower of all places?" Kaiba asked.

The tower broke apart just as he caught up with me. Once again we plummeted through its wreckage. Last time Kaiba had wanted to use our fall to test his safety system. This time we knew there was no safety. This time, Kaiba wasn't laughing as we fell through the wind. Once again I called in the Winged Guardian of the Fortress. I held my breath until he arrived, until we were safely drifting to earth in his talons.

"You're that disturbed by what happened that day?" Kaiba asked.

"So it seems," I answered.

"Why do you keep dragging us back here?" Kaiba asked. He looked more shaken by that realization than by the crumbling ledge on which we had stood. His eyes were as wide as after we'd kissed; that startled look drew me in just as strongly.

"I hate my failures," I told him.

"Because you lost? It wasn't a fair win. I told you that," Kaiba said.

"No. Because I was so afraid of losing I almost gave up myself and everything important to me – including you. Your life card matters, Kaiba. It always has. You were the one who threw it on the table that day at Pegasus' tower, but I was the one ready to tear it up. I shouldn't have needed Yugi to stop me from killing you."

"I'm glad it was Yugi that conceded the match on Pegasus' tower, not you," Kaiba said.

"Why?" I asked, honestly startled.

"Because I never want mercy from you."

"What do you want?"

The question hung in the air. I didn't press for an answer I was unsure I was ready to hear. When Yugi had found this same scene in my soul room, I'd told him that it a decoy to keep any intruders from getting too close. Now in this dreamscape, reality stared me in the face.

An eleven year old had led me here… and I still saw traces of that boy in Kaiba's childish boasting at all his duels, in the quick turn of his head when I said something that flicked him raw in the instant before he summoned his formidable anger – but there was nothing of childhood in what I was feeling now. Kaiba's air of danger, of recklessness – the way he made his home in the place where despair and courage meet and become one – had sparked my respect and friendship into desire. I felt protective of the child he'd been; I felt passion for the man he'd grown into.

And for once, I didn't know what my next move should be.

* * *

 _  
**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter and for much patience through several revisions.**   
_

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Apologizing again for the delay in updates. Life has been a trifle uncooperative with my desire update regularly. The last chapter ended with Yami going to sleep. This one begins immediately afterwards.

I wanted to thank **Azhdarcho** for reminding me that checking in with the overall plot every now and then is a good idea – and it's probably something I wouldn't have thought of doing on my own.

Back when Kaiba and company were preparing to enter/just entering the virtual world, I (hopefully) established that Zorc, Gozaburo, etc. were waiting for the game to kill Kaiba, Yugi/Yami and Mokuba so they could use the VR pods that brought them there to escape. Kaiba realized that he had to go into the game to neutralize them as a threat and that to do this he had to win – the catch being that as he'd never played the game to completion he has no idea what winning would entail. Anyway, that was both over ten chapters and over a year ago, so revisiting it in this chapter made sense. Hopefully it wasn't a merely a rehash, but a way to show where the characters are at now in terms of their own progress towards learning to win.

 **Kaiba School Note:** I find it interesting that Kaiba felt the need to go to school at all after Gozaburo's death – and that he ended up at Yugi's school. It seemed more likely to me that the mansion would be in a different, more upper class, school district. Or he could have chosen a private school. Instead he chose to attend an ordinary school in an ordinary district, filled with students – if Yugi, Jounouchi and Honda are any example – whose academic accomplishments could only be described as ordinary as well (and in Jounouchi's case this would be a fairly charitable description.) I wondered if he had lived in Yugi's neighborhood before his parents had died. It's kind of funny to think of them playing in the same sandbox at the local playground.

 **Yami Note:** In the last chapter, Yami feel asleep sprawled all over Kaiba. I couldn't resist having him wake up in the same position. These guys seem to deal better with their feelings when they're asleep…

 **Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my LJ account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated. As per FFNet's policy I can no longer post responses at the end of each chapter.

 _Comments would be adored…_


	24. Lost Sanctuary

**CHAPTER 24: LOST SANCTUARY**

 _Every story needs a hero – someone marked from birth as special – although usually not as literally as Baboon Rafiki painting Simba's forehead before showing him to the kneeling collection of zebras, elephants and giraffes as their next Lion King. And of course, their life has to continue on its extraordinary path, whether they're pulling swords from stones or going tornado surfing in Kansas houses._

 _But is it only heroes who are special? After all, Darth Vadar is no one's idea of a hero, but Anakin Skywalker's birth and childhood as a pod-racing slave were hardly ordinary – even by armpit of the galaxy standards. And if you look at "The Princess Bride" everyone – hero, villain or in-between – from baby giants to boys seeking six-fingered men to star crossed lovers to evil princes had a memorable childhood back-story to recount._

 _And maybe that's the point. Everyone's history is momentous – even if only to the teller._

 **RYOU BAKURA'S NARRATIVE**

I hadn't seen the gang in ages – not since I'd given Yugi the Ring and the Eye. It had been a bit like having the flu. At first I'd just laid there in my apartment, almost too tired to feed myself, wishing I was a little kid again and my mom could bring me soup. Then I graduated to laying on the couch, enjoying the feeling of being all right, enjoying the feeling of being alone.

And everything reminded me that I _was_ alone.

All the usual things – role playing games, my Duel Monsters deck – made me think of the Spirit of the Ring… even though I'd been the one to get into all those things first. It had taken me a while to remember that, just like it always took a while to get over the flu. I looked at my deck then slipped it in my pocket. It had been mine, not his. I liked role-playing games better, but I'd been a good duelist in my own right.

I hadn't talked to Yugi since I'd given him the Items. That transaction was a little hazy too. I headed out the door, noticing that it was nice out. Maybe Yugi would be up for a game.

But I didn't see him when I walked in the game shop. Honda was on a stool leaning against the counter; Jounouchi was behind it. I could hear someone rustling around in the back.

"Hi. Is Yugi around?" I asked.

Jounouchi and Honda looked up at that, then at each other. I glanced towards the back of the store.

"Oh man… that's right… you don't know anything," Jounouchi said.

"What?" I asked. I had a well deserved reputation for being out of it, but that seemed like a bit much, especially coming from someone failing every subject but lunch and gym.

They shook their heads and opened and shut their mouths a couple of times, but speech seemed beyond them.

I paused, thinking. I'd given Yugi the Millennium Items. Now he was gone. "I hope he's okay," I said.

"It's Yugi, man. Of course he'll be okay, right? He's got to be… I mean I bet he is…" Jounouchi said.

"So do we," Honda added.

"Hey, we should have thought of it earlier. You like all that crazy role playing stuff." Jounouchi shuddered. Given that the last time he was in a role playing game he almost ended up stuck as a character token, I couldn't blame him for looking less than happy at the memory. "Anything you tell us about role-playing or games or virtual worlds can help… if Pegasus ever gets off his lazy ass and we get to talk to Yugi again."

"Even if he doesn't, we could probably get a message to Yugi through his grandfather," Honda pointed out.

"Yeah, I forgot that. Good point," Jounouchi said.

They looked at me expectantly, like they'd made everything clear. Was Yugi really off somewhere trying to take the Spirit of the Ring down?

"I'll do anything I can," I said.

"I just wish we knew what we were dealing with. You've played a lot – if you don't know how to win a virtual reality game, how do you figure it out?" Jounouchi asked.

"Every game has to have an objective, even if it's hidden. Sometimes the way to win is to figure that out. Wait a minute… you mean that Yugi is stuck in a role-playing game designed by the Spirit of the Ring?" I asked, trying not to panic as I thought about what that could mean.

"No! Where'd you get that idea? Kaiba was the one who designed it. He created this whole virtual world and now Yugi's stuck in it," Jounouchi explained.

"The other Yugi had played it, but he never said what the goal was. I think though, that he was looking for his memories. But it's not like Kaiba designed the game for him."

"Maybe each player sets their own goals – sort of makes the game their own." I whistled softly. "That would be an amazing piece of game design." I wasn't sure that was even possible. "Could Kaiba really have created a game that can look inside of you and see what your biggest challenges are?"

"How do you even win something like that?" Jounouchi asked.

"I don't know – maybe winning means something different to each player," I said, thinking out loud.

"So the four of them could all be playing different games even though they're together," Jounouchi said slowly

"Four?" I asked.

"Yeah, Yugi, the other Yugi, Kaiba and Mokuba," Jounouchi answered.

"We gotta remember to call him Yami now that he's not with Yugi anymore," Honda corrected.

"What?" I yelled.

"We don't get it either. Somehow Yami got his own body in this game. Well since all seven Millennium Items are in there too – anything can happen," Jounouchi said.

"The Spirit of the Ring is in there too, isn't he? That's where he went," I asked, suddenly sure of it.

"Probably. That's the one thing that could make this even worse. Yugi hasn't seen him but we only get news if they walk past Sugoroku's cave," Honda agreed.

Sugoroku? Cave? They kept throwing new information at me, but it's not like the details mattered.

"Yeah, but I bet that nut job that used to be in your Ring is going to try and mess things up somehow. Hey, what can you tell us about the psycho? If he's in there, he must want something too, right?" Jounouchi asked.

"It's important," Honda said quietly.

I nodded, but didn't answer. Here's the thing – they weren't asking for me to report on the Thief King who'd taken over my body. He was invulnerable. They were asking me to talk about those few moments when he'd been a teenager like me, just another kid who'd lost his family and was hurting because of it.

Yugi's grandfather came out of the back room. I'd almost forgotten I'd heard someone back there.

"Please," he said, like he knew what he was asking.

I swallowed. I don't know why it was hard, like the Spirit of the Ring had a hold on my loyalty – except that he was dead and the dead have always had a grip on me. There's a permanence to them that I craved.

Life was confusing. It was loud and painful. I tried to keep it at arm's length, as if it couldn't hurt me if I didn't get too close to it. But how could I stay on the sidelines when my best friend needed me? That was just another way of playing dead and I didn't want to end up like the Spirit of the Ring, with nothing but ghosts in my life. That had been true long enough.

I looked at Yugi's grandfather... at the gray spiky hair and the short, stocky build. Yugi would probably look just like him when he got old... if he ever got the chance to.

"I don't know much," I said, being indecisive more out of habit than anything else. "Just that his family died. They lived in a place called Kul Elna. They were thieves like him, though probably not as good at it. Soldiers killed them. They burned the town to the ground when he was a kid. I think they needed a sacrifice to create the Millennium Items in the first place – and everyone in the town was it."

"Oh shit," Honda said. "I never knew the Items had a history like that. No wonder so many of them turn things so bad."

"He blamed the pharaoh," I said.

"Wow, that psycho must suck at math. Even I know that doesn't add up," Jounouchi objected. "That freak was our age. Yami must have been just a little kid himself when it happened."

"I know. But I don't think time means anything to him. I know he adapted to everything here quickly, like planes and duel disks, but I don't think any of it was real to him."

I paused, wondering for the first time what he'd been like as a child.

"He was the oldest son," I continued. "He said it was his job to look after his family – that they couldn't rest, that he couldn't rejoin them – not until he'd avenged them, that he'd proved their deaths mattered as much as a pharaoh's. You're looking for a weak spot, aren't you? Something you can use to throw him off his game. He's a teenager like us, who misses his family, who'd do anything to rejoin them, to avenge them, to prove he was a good son. It's the only weak spot I ever found."

Sugoroku shook his head. "Another troubled child."

Just then a limousine pulled up outside the store. It had a big KC on the door.

"It's time for me to head over to the Kaiba Corporation computer lab and see if I can reach them. I'll let you know if I see Yugi or any of the others," Sugoroku said as he left.

* * *

 **SUGOROKU'S NARRATIVE**

It was strange how quickly I'd grown used to the Kaiba Corporation computer lab… how used I'd gotten to standing in a cave as a virtual reality avatar while waiting… hoping to see my grandson. I was lucky this time. Yugi and Mokuba had approached my cave almost as soon as I'd arrived.

The boys had been cheerful. I'd matched them smile for smile although the substitution of Mokuba for Kaiba had chilled me to the bone. I realized, with a flush of shame, that it was because I'd believed Kaiba when he'd sworn to give up his life if necessary to see that Yugi survived – a vow I'd accepted without protest from a child my grandson's age. I sighed remembering my last confrontation with Kaiba. There had been an uncomfortable note of truth to Kaiba's accusations. I wanted Yugi's safety above all else. But even though it wasn't the whole truth, wasn't all I wanted, I now understood why Kaiba had gotten so angry when I'd called him, "son."

And now I was afraid my grandson was the one with promises to keep – to protect his even younger companion.

I had other caves to scroll through and another visit to pay if the pharaoh or Kaiba came close enough for me to speak to them. It was out in the open now – the pharaoh was free, or at least he had full range of this virtual trap. I'd caught glimpses of him whenever I'd watched Yugi duel. We'd never spoken except that one time decades ago, when he'd saved my life and handed me the Puzzle.

I heard them before they came into view… Kaiba's deep baritone and another voice… unfamiliar although I realized I'd heard echoes of it before in my grandson's lighter tones.

They were arguing. The first words I caught were Yami's.

"I'm not the one with the Wicked Worm Beast following me around."

"I prefer him to the psychotic tomb robber you've got stalking you." Kaiba answered.

"At least I'm not being stalked by a figment of my own imagination…" Yami began but Kaiba cut him off.

"How many times do I have to tell you people it's a fucking computer glitch?" Kaiba yelled.

"You're the one whose been repeating over and over that everything is in this game for a reason. And now you want me to believe that the Wicked Worm Beast following you around like a demented puppy is the one thing that's meaningless. Get a grip Kaiba-boy," Yami said with a laugh.

"Don't call me that!" Kaiba snarled.

"Would you prefer I called you 'Seto'?" Yami asked in a low tone I'd never heard my grandson use. Hearing that voice, those words, that resonant pitch… knowing he'd once used my grandson's mouth… it was confusing.

I waited for Kaiba to explode, either at the words or the provocative note in Yami's voice, but he ignored – or dodged – Yami's question.

"Look, there's a cave ahead. Maybe we can find out how Mokuba is," Kaiba said. For the first time he sounded excited without even a tinge of anger in his voice. Then I realized he'd sounded different, more animated, today.

"From a cave?" Yami asked, amused.

"No. Idiot. It's what's in the cave. I created NPCs as part of the game. Yugi activated them."

"I know." Yami laughed. "We saw them. Mokuba assumed you were testing something out or maybe trying to let us know you'd managed to reprogram things."

"It was an accident. Then your genius friends decided to invite Pegasus to join the party," Kaiba said sourly. "Pegasus took the custom NPCs and managed to tie Yugi's grandfather into one of them, so we can talk to him through his avatar. It might be in the cave. For all I know the whole gang's here as NPCs by now."

"We can talk to Yugi's grandfather? When were you going to get around to letting me know?" Yami demanded.

"When it became relevant. Like now."

"I could have kept a look-out too," Yami pointed out.

"Yeah, like you were going to notice anything before me. Who noticed that we'd finally reached the part of this word where the sky had turned blue again, first?"

"Ha! I'd gotten used to the sky being gold – and I was too taken up with realizing that it meant we were closer to Yugi and Mokuba to comment. Let's see who finds the next cave first – unless you have the locations memorized."

"Wouldn't help. They appear randomly," Kaiba said smugly.

"This is great! I can't wait to see Yugi's grandfather. I hope… he has every right to be angry… we should have been honest with him. He gave me a home."

"What difference does that make? All we need the old guy for is information, anyway."

"That might be all you need. I would like to pay my respects to Yugi's grandfather in person – and offer my regrets for deceiving him."

"If you want to apologize for saving his grandson's life, go right ahead. Once I've checked up on Mokuba, you and the old geezer can blab about whatever you want, for all I care."

"How dare you speak so disrespectfully of Yugi's grandfather?"

"I'll speak however I want to whoever I please. Do you think because we're stuck together that makes you my boss?"

"You can't possibly wish to be unstuck more ferverently than I do, you asshole!"

"Yugi must have had rocks in his head, throwing me the Puzzle," Kaiba complained.

"Since he thought your miserable carcass was worth saving, yeah."

I stifled a laugh. Yugi had assured me that Kaiba and Yami would be fine together. Yugi must have been assuming that they wouldn't kill each other before learning to get along.

"Now that we're here," Yami added, "How do we reach Sugoroku?"

"See that rune on the side? Just touch it and if Sugoroku is there, he'll appear. And make sure you're out of the way of the entrance. Some caves are empty and some have monsters programmed to attack when summoned."

"Got it," Yami said.

"A crossbow? Good choice," Kaiba said.

I'd learned that with Kaiba it was safer to materialize flat on the ground with my hands in the air.

Yami rushed forward to help me up. I was reminded of our first meeting when he'd saved me from falling off that bridge.

"Thank you," I said.

I was surprised to see Yami step back and allow Kaiba to ask his questions first.

"Why are you here? Why aren't you with Yugi?" Kaiba's face paled slightly. "Is Mokuba…"

"Mokuba's fine," I said quickly. "They both are."

"I'm glad Mokuba's… I'm glad they're both okay. Thank you for notifying me," Kaiba said formally.

"Mokuba said to tell you that Noa can't find you to visit unless you think of him first," I added.

Kaiba's look of incredulity was more eloquent than most of his spoken answers.

"Noa agreed to keep you updated on Mokuba's safety. According to Mokuba he felt it was his responsibility," I didn't add that Mokuba had clearly hoped they'd become friends.

I quickly recounted Ryou Bakura's conversation as well. When I finished, Kaiba nodded curtly as if I was an employee who'd just completed a progress report in a minimally competent fashion.

"Tell Yugi that Yami is fine, when you see him next," Kaiba said in dismissal, turning away from me.

There'd been a note of alarm in Kaiba's voice earlier, slight but unmistakable. Now it had resumed its usual brusque, businesslike tones, uncolored by even a tinge of relief. He obviously expected me to disappear once I delivered my message. I sighed. The idea that there was any other reason for my visit – that I might actually care how he and Yami were doing in this strange place – had sailed so far over Kaiba's head it might as well not have existed in the first place.

Yami had stood on the side throughout our entire exchange. I didn't mistake silence for disinterest. Now he stepped forward.

"Thank you," he said. "I'm sorry that Yugi and I kept you in the dark."

It was the first time I'd seen him since Egypt, since I'd been a young – or at least a younger – man, myself.

"I should have known. You've disturbed my dreams for decades. I've thought of you saying that you were waiting for me when you handed me your Puzzle. I hoped it was a hallucination, but I always knew better. Tell me child, were you conscious the whole time, throughout all the millennia that passed until our meeting?" I asked.

"No," he said gently.

I sighed with relief. "You ease my mind. I didn't want to think the Puzzle came to me at such a cost."

"The first thing I remember was seeing you… reaching out to you… giving you the Puzzle. As soon as it left my hands, it was like waking up briefly only to return to sleep. It didn't hurt."

I hugged him. He was solid. He was leaner than my grandson and slightly taller. He stood stiffly in my arms for a moment. I wondered how long it had been since anyone had hugged him. Then he relaxed and returned my embrace, as if he had finally remembered how.

"Touch is special," he said as he stepped back.

Kaiba rolled his eyes and groaned. Yami ignored him.

"It is," I agreed, smiling and hugging Yami again. "Yugi and Mokuba are looking for a sanctuary. Mokuba guessed you'd activate them," I added, turning back to Kaiba.

"Mokuba was right. I designed a series of safe houses or sanctuaries. Since I never activated them, they escaped Zorc and Gozaburo's notice. Tell Mokuba that I've switched them on. Nothing can hurt them while they're indoors. But remind Mokuba," Kaiba added urgently, "that any sanctuary is only safe for 48 hours. After that it turns into an inescapable death-trap."

"What?" Yami yelled. "Exactly how many more ways have you found to booby-trap this world?"

"I'll tell them, but I think they already know." I remembered the glance Yugi and Mokuba had exchanged before telling me they'd be fine once they found the string of safe houses embedded in the game. It's a startling moment when you realize your grandson has become the one trying to take care of you.

I looked at Kaiba. His eyes were curiously blank. I wondered what was going on in the mind behind them. Nothing about him invited questions, but like Yami I was curious. "Why on Earth did you design a sanctuary that will suddenly kill the people sheltering there?"

"It's a game," he said, shrugging.

I bit back the words, "And now my grandson is stuck playing it because of you." My thought was neither kind nor fair. He'd never intended for Yugi – or his brother – to be in this game fighting for their lives. He wasn't even responsible for the deadly turn this game had taken. The blame for that rested with the adoptive father whose training had driven him here in the first place. And according to Pegasus, some of the revised coding had been in hieroglyphics. At least some of the demons infesting this game had been brought in though the Millennium Item I'd given my grandson. I knew all of that. But it was hard to remember my sympathy in the face of Kaiba's aggressive rudeness.

"That's not an answer," I said, trying to keep my patience. "I've sold enough games to know that's not the way sanctuaries usually work."

"Isn't it, old man? Save your pap for weaklings who need it." Kaiba flung a hand out in a dismissive gesture and walked away.

"Kaiba!" Yami said, stiffening in outrage.

Despite my best intentions I lost my temper. "Why would you do such a short-sighted thing? Didn't you stop to think that someone seeking sanctuary might actually need it?" I yelled at Kaiba's back, before stopping myself again. I was angry that Yugi was here and in danger – and that whatever limited safety he managed to find would be so temporary. But it wasn't right to blame a child my grandson's age for any of this, even if everything about Kaiba invited it, was a lightning rod to my storm.

Kaiba turned around. "I told the truth," he yelled back, as if he needed anger to force out the rest of his response. "That's exactly what happens. You walk into a house. You think you're safe. You think you've found a home. Then it turns lethal, and you were a fool to ever have hoped for anything else. Anyone deluded enough to believe in a sanctuary they haven't created themselves deserves whatever they get."

"But, Kaiba… you _did_ create this sanctuary. You could have designed anything, you could have created a true haven. Instead, you chose this," I said as gently as I could.

"It would still have only been an illusion," he insisted stubbornly.

"No. If that's what you believe then it's become your reality, but you were the one to choose it all the same."

I smiled at the look of confusion on his face, brief as it was. Part of me was warmed by the knowledge that he felt safe enough to let me see something so close to vulnerability, even for an instant.

"I've changed the specs as far as I can," he added, changing the conversation so smoothly it took a moment to register. "The game will now give greater weight to the players' thoughts, moods and personality types when setting the level of danger."

"Thank you," I said, almost weak-kneed with relief. I regretted grinning quite so broadly when I took another look at Kaiba and Yami; the implications of what they'd done hit me.

"That was generous of you both," I said.

"Their safety is our first concern. I promise," Yami said.

"I appreciate that… but please be careful. I want to see you all come out of this safely," I insisted.

"Tell Yugi," Kaiba continued as if I hadn't spoken, "the safe houses were designed so that NPCs could stay there without a time limit, except for the final one. But until those 48 hours are up, he can throw a party in there if he wants to."

"What made you think of it?" I asked.

He shrugged. I was learning to read Kaiba's gestures. Despite appearances, this one wasn't dismissive. It was as eloquent an expression of frustration – and as close to admitting uncertainty – as Kaiba could get.

"Yugi's friends are important to him. You don't take someone into a fight and then tie their hands – even if their choice of weapons isn't yours."

"I'm sure Mokuba will enjoy the company as well," I said.

Unexpectedly Kaiba's face darkened. "He's wise to look elsewhere."

I was surprised into laughing when Yami poked Kaiba and said, "Even you can't think Mokuba's shopping for a replacement."

Kaiba glared back but the brooding look left his face.

Yami looked at me and frowned. "You remind me of someone from my past. Someone I liked. I can't remember. I wish I could."

He looked so lonely and lost for a moment… then Kaiba's voice broke in.

"Focus, Yami. What difference does it make? Whoever he reminds you of has been dead for 3,000 years by now, anyway," Kaiba said.

Yami surprised me by smiling at that.

My avatar was time limited; I could feel the seconds racing by. It was frustrating having only words to offer.

"Take care of yourselves – and each other," I said.

Kaiba snorted. But he also moved fractionally closer to Yami until he was positioned slightly at Yami's back. Maybe it was Kaiba's height, but his stance suddenly seemed protective. Yami smiled, the confidence back in his voice as he said, ""We will. I promise."

As I left their virtual world, it occurred to me that Yugi was right: they might make a better team than I'd thought.

* * *

 _  
**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter and once again helping Kaiba to sound like he know something about computers.**   
_

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Kaiba designed this game to help him get rid of what he identified during Battle City as his demons of hatred, anger and bitterness. The thing is though – these things are still a part of him, and I think they'd show up in the game itself, since he designed it and it has personal meaning – so safe houses won't be really safe, or at least not permanently so, until, as Yami notes it gives the appearance he's booby-trapped his own imaginary world.

 **Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my Live Journal account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated.

 _As always, comments would be adored…_


	25. Soul of the Duelist

**CHAPTER 25: SOUL OF THE DUELIST**

_Sometimes obstacles are as obvious as the troll lurking under the bridge or the Balrog standing on top of it. Sometimes challenges exist in the moment: to be met, mastered and as easily forgotten._

_Sometimes though, the real challenge isn't the one staring you in the face, but the one that smacks you in the back of the head just as you think that the danger's passed. When Luke Skywalker fought Darth Vadar in the Cloud City on Bespin, his goals were as simple as action-adventure movie goals usually are: to defeat his foe or at least escape alive. But maybe the true test only came after the battle had ended… maybe the real battle was living with the knowledge he'd met his father._

**GOZABURO'S NARRATIVE**

My own son would have lost that chess game.

Would it have been a lack of skill? A faltering of will? Or would Noa just have known it was his place to lose to me?

I'd made Seto into the person he was, and now he was trying to change, as if he could alter his character along with this program. As if, at this late date, he still thought he could deny me.

Publicly at least, Zorc seemed unconcerned by the changes my adoptive son had made to this virtual world. Then again, when we were together I maintained a façade of indifference as well. When I was alone I tried to counter Seto's changes, but I'd been effectively locked out. I'd scanned the alterations I could see, the ones he'd made before managing to find a way to hide his movements. There was a subtly to Seto's latest moves that reminded me of our last encounter, of how he'd tried to put a defensive perimeter around himself and everything he cared about. He'd done the same thing here.

He was rubbing his seeming victory in my face – or worse – making it clear that I'd never been more than a means to an end to him. I'd tried to brand into his heart that when you're on top everyone beneath you is just a tool to be used and discarded. And now the little bastard was trying to do the same to me.

Seto had lied to me from the first day we'd met. He'd told me he insisted on making his brother part of our deal because he wanted an audience for his victory. It could have been partly true. He was certainly enough of a show-off. But I'd known from the beginning better than to take anything he said at face value. Seto had been quick to grasp the advantages of knowing your enemy. He was slower to get that this applied to him as well.

It hadn't taken much to figure out that Mokuba was Seto's weak spot. At first I tried threatening the little mouse. It was the most obvious move. It reminded Seto of just how powerless he was. But it also welded them into an even tighter pair, which had never been my intention.

I'd used physical punishment as a way of breaking Seto, of course… returned to it again and again. But as pleasant as it was, I was after more than mere enjoyment. It was another effective way of proving to him just how puny and powerless he was, how totally under my control. It forced him to realize that for all his pretensions he was just a child; more importantly, he belonged to me now.

Noa had wanted to be my son. He'd failed at that task. Seto had wanted to be my heir, not my child. He looked like Noa. He'd even cut his hair the same way. That was enough to make me hate him on sight. I wanted to punish him for his presumption, for thinking a stray dog from the gutter like him could replace the irreplaceable. But for all that Seto had schemed to make it happen, he didn't have a clue what it meant to be my heir. He wanted to live in my house, enjoy all the trappings of my power and wealth and eventually run my company as he pleased. But if he was going to step into my shoes, I was going to break him and recast him in my own image first. And that didn't include a brother.

I could have simply removed Mokuba – I'd threatened it often enough – but that wouldn't have served my purpose. I didn't just want Mokuba gone, I wanted Seto being the one to give the order.

It was strange how every time I thought of the past it appeared in front of me – not that I minded revisiting this particular scene. I'd wanted Seto to hear Mokuba's name and feel remembered pain. And for that, a new strategy was needed.

Mokuba was six. It didn't take much for him to screw up – or for Seto to get caught trying to cover their tracks. I'd reassured Seto that I knew he wasn't the one to blame.

"Mokuba has to learn to behave better," I told Seto, enjoying the way his face paled. I always picked the middle of the night for these little visits, the time when my adoptive son was at his tiredest and most vulnerable, when he'd be least likely to be able to think things through.

"Mokuba's my responsibility. We agreed on that. I'll make sure it doesn't happen again," Seto said urgently.

"There's still the matter of punishment. The misdeed needs to be paid for," I reminded him.

"I understand," he said.

I'd brought my riding crop. Seto had learned by now not to protest. He wasn't as good at hiding his feelings as he thought he was, though. His face flushed with humiliation as he bent over his desk chair, waiting for the first blow. I was sorry I couldn't see his face as it landed.

His chest was heaving by the time I'd finished. His breath was mingled with harsh sobs although, as usual, he'd managed to contain his tears.

"I don't care what you do to me," he said defiantly, facing me once more. The words, "Better me than Mokuba," seemed to hang in the air although he was too wary to say them aloud.

I answered him anyway. "You don't really think I'd beat a six year old for a minor transgression, do you?"

His mouth dropped open.

"You must have known he wasn't in any real danger," I repeated patiently.

He stared at me. He was exhausted, in pain and confused… just the way I wanted him for this conversation.

"He was safe?" he asked numbly.

"Of course he was. I'm training you, not your brother. Have I ever hurt him?"

Seto shook his head.

"So there was no need for this grand and unnecessary gesture. He was never in any danger. Admit it boy, you didn't do this for Mokuba, but for yourself. You just had to prove how tough you were, what a big man you were, regardless of the consequences. That's why I punished you."

I could almost see his doubts chasing each other sluggishly through his sleep deprived mind. He knew better than to trust me, but I'd never actually hurt Mokuba and he knew that too. Seto was eleven. He wanted more than anything to believe Mokuba was safe, but that would mean admitting I was right and that he was just a foolish child. He wasn't willing to risk Mokuba's well being by believing me, but he was halfway convinced I'd told the truth. His shoulders slumped. It was a matter of pride with him to always keep eye contact, no matter what. Now his gaze dropped to the floor.

Seto loved winning. With a little patience I could make his brother's name synonymous with defeat.

"It's obvious you were thinking of yourself," I said.

"No," Seto answered, but his voice lacked conviction.

"Don't forget you have work to finish," I said as I left the room. I waited until I was out of sight to smile triumphantly. Seto had been so eager to protect his brother that he'd forgotten he had a rare outing with him in the morning – an outing he was now in no shape to attend.

It was a win-win situation for me, one that repeated itself over the next five years. Again and again, Seto had to either cancel a treat that both he and his brother knew would never be rescheduled or he forced his injured body to go through with it – only to be rewarded by Mokuba's tears and increasingly frantic responses when Seto evaded his demands to be told what was wrong… each time Seto assured him everything was fine and under control.

It was an enjoyable game, but Seto should have remembered: moves are best made in combination. Before his twelfth birthday arrived, I'd started the second part of my attack.

I'd never minded Seto having a conscience. It made things easier. Once you break that, the rest follows. I routinely kept Seto deprived of sleep. For this next stage in his training, I'd cut his allotted rest time still further and sent him back to work without dinner on consecutive nights. My actions could have alerted him that I had something special planned, but it was a calculated risk. I'd done the same things often enough for no reason other than that I could. It was an effective way of keeping him off balance.

This time, I'd told Seto that if he completed his latest project by midnight – for once a goal that was well within his reach – he'd get 48 hours of uninterrupted rest. It was my usual reward.

Neither brother had realized yet just how extensive the surveillance system was. I'd watched Mokuba as he'd carefully constructed his game. First he turned a piece of paper sideways. Then he drew a row of six circles across the top and bottom edges, his tongue sticking out slightly in concentration. He paused. I wondered if he'd forgotten whatever markings came next. I wanted him to finish. Finally he added a long oval at either end, and started coloring in the page. He managed to stay within the lines but the result was crude. It looked like a child's scribble. Next Mokuba drew and cut out 48 smaller circles, stopping every now and then to count them. He colored them in as well using the pencils that were supposed to be reserved for his homework assignments.

He smiled in satisfaction at the result, oblivious to the flaws in its execution. He didn't have Seto's abilities or his drive for perfection. I didn't know what the game was but it didn't matter. Mokuba sat down and waited for the coast to be clear enough for him to sneak off to see his brother.

I made sure the hallway was busy with one servant or another until 10:00 PM. It was the perfect time. Any earlier and Seto could have finished their game and still completed his project if he rushed through it fast enough. Any later and Seto could have told himself he was trying to keep Mokuba from getting caught. This way, when Seto rejected Mokuba he'd be unable to pretend it was for any reason but the true one: he wanted his promised 48 hour respite.

I watched as Mokuba snuck down the hall, a smile on his face. The one on mine was bigger when Seto threw his brother out. I could hear the exhaustion in Seto's voice. Judging by the way he went sobbing back to his room, I'm guessing Mokuba only heard the anger.

I went to Seto's room at midnight. As expected the project had been completed.

"Good job," I said.

Seto looked up at that, startled at the praise.

"Go to bed. You've earned it," I said.

I waited until he'd staggered to bed and closed his eyes before adding, "By the way, did you see Mokuba earlier? I passed him in the hallway. He was crying."

Seto's eyes flew open. He was too young and too tired to watch his words. "Mokuba was crying? It's my fault. I sent him away."

"Quite right. After all what do his tears matter? He's nobody. Who cares if the brat cries himself sick? After all you're getting to go to sleep and you're the one that matters, not him. I knew you'd realize that eventually. I knew when it counted you'd put yourself first."

"No," he mumbled.

I couldn't believe it. Seto actually tried to get out of bed. He made it as far as sitting up before flopping back down, his eyes already closed. When I was sure he was out cold, I left the room.

It was another scene that played itself out over and over. Seto knew I was his enemy, he had to know I was setting him up. But he still felt guilty for each harsh word, for every shove. I'd figured that sooner or later he'd snap. I'd been right, after a fashion – after all he _had_ tried to kill Mokuba. But maybe I'd had my eye on the wrong brother. That Mokuba stayed loyal to Seto argued nothing more than stupidity – but somehow, despite everything, he'd managed to hold on to Seto's loyalty as well.

I frowned. My thoughts were running on a well worn and increasingly unprofitable track.

Unexpectedly they were interrupted. Zorc's pet kid appeared in front of me. Icicles hung from his white hair. There was snow on his cheeks.

"What happened to you?" I asked.

"Damn him!" he snarled.

"Who?" I asked. We'd ignored each other up 'til now. Whatever was eating him badly enough to make him want to talk to me could potentially be useful.

"That bastard you refer to as your adopted son. I boasted that he couldn't prevent me from finding them if the pharaoh used the Millennium Items. He took me up on it. He's taunting me – reminding me that unless I become a player in this game, there's nothing I can do to him or to the pharaoh."

"I didn't think you were the kind of wimp who'd settle for sitting on the sidelines," I observed.

"My master has…"

"I didn't think you were the kind of person who'd call someone else your master, either," I said, waiting for the inevitable explosion.

"I don't care about that!" he yelled. "Zorc has carried me safely through millennia so that I can avenge my family. He's promised I will see their deaths finally answered for."

"And you trust him to keep his promises? How touching," I sneered.

He stormed off without answering, but I was content to wait and see if my words brought fruit later. Besides, for the moment, waiting was all I could do. We could have chosen to be players in this game – we still could for what it was worth – facing whatever challenges it threw at us and taking on Seto and the rest directly. We'd chosen a different course. I'd set this game up to do my work for me; there'd been a delightful irony in letting Seto's game kill him while I stood by and watched. But Seto had thrown that challenge back in my face by locking me out of his program, by finding a way around my revisions as if I wasn't relevant anymore. I'd been his puppetmaster, pulling his strings. With a few commands he'd turned me into a mere bystander instead – then, as the final insult, he'd snatched even that demeaning role away. Although I knew staying on the sidelines was the game plan we'd agreed on, I agreed with the under-aged minion who'd just stalked off: it was becoming unacceptably unsatisfying.

* * *

**YAMI'S NARRATIVE**

I'd followed our meeting with Sugoroku by testing the Millennium Items again – the Scales this time. It had seemed preferable than another evening of not talking about almost kissing the night before. I'd learned a little more and fallen into a trance again – the only difference was that this time Bakura hadn't come to gloat. Kaiba had looked suspiciously smug at Bakura's non-appearance.

"Not that I'm ungrateful, but what did you do?" I asked.

"Since he told me that he tracked the Items, I inserted a bounce pattern for anyone but us who tried hooking into them."

"Where did you send him?"

Kaiba gave a bark of laughter. "To the polar region. I figured he needed to cool off."

I'd laughed, but our rapport was over almost as soon as it began. I wasn't surprised Kaiba wasn't ready to talk about what had happened between us. I didn't know what to say myself. I'd gone to sleep expecting the next day to be awkward.

It was.

The best thing I could say about it as evening approached was that the day was almost over. Kaiba and I stopped and set up our camp in silence. As soon as we finished, Kaiba went to try and contact Noa. We were hungry for news. Kaiba walked as far away from me as he could without dragging me along as part of the Puzzle he wore around his neck, until he was screened by the trees. I wondered if he wanted privacy for himself, or if he assumed that Noa might not appear if there was an audience.

Kaiba shrugged as he returned. "Mokuba and Yugi are okay." He paused, paced the ground, then stopped and shrugged again. Relieved as he was, Kaiba was also wired. We'd stopped for the night, but clearly he'd be unable to sleep for a while. "I figured it would be like summoning a duel monster."

"Was it?" I asked.

"No. I don't like being in Noa's debt. I figured he'd gloat."

"Did he?" I asked, wondering if that was what had Kaiba so uptight. But he seemed bothered rather than angry.

"No. He was decent. I don't get it. I mean it's not like we've ever been… friends or whatever…" Kaiba went back to pacing, as if movement would help him sort things out. He shook his head. "Noa surprised me. He'd asked me a question in return, something about Mokuba and my biological father. I wasn't sure why he was interested, but I didn't mind a little quid pro quo. There wasn't much to say anyway. We didn't see much of him after our mom died. Noa just nodded though like he was adding something to his store of knowledge," Kaiba laughed abruptly. "Noa once boasted that since he existed electronically, he had all the knowledge in the world. I guess he's rethinking that one. He told me: 'Sometimes death takes the people left behind as well, doesn't it?' Then he disappeared without waiting for an answer."

"Did you have one?" I asked.

Kaiba shrugged yet again. "I don't even know who he was talking about… his family… my original one… him… me… I'm not sure it matters. I had Mokuba. That's the answer. That's always been the answer. It might not have been enough for my father, but I'm not my father. I'd rather be anything than a nonentity, even…"

"You're not your adoptive father, either," I said.

Kaiba whirled around at that like he was under attack. I was surprised his sword hadn't appeared in his hand, he was that tense. He let out a breath, but I wasn't fooled. His back was ramrod straight; the muscles in his shoulders and neck were bunched and strained.

"Stop doing that!" he ordered.

"What?" I asked.

"Trying to make me feel better. It's unnerving."

I laughed. He glared at me, but his shoulders finally relaxed.

"It's the truth," I said. "Neither is Noa. It's harder to write him off as an enemy when he's being a friend, isn't it?"

"I don't know what he wants," Kaiba said.

"It sounds like he wanted to talk," I pointed out.

Kaiba snorted. "That's all I need – a chatty ghost."

I rolled my eyes, thinking Kaiba hardly needed to be _deliberately_ obtuse.

He looked at our bedrolls and said, "You might as well get some sleep."

I wondered if he was trying to avoid talking about how he felt about Noa – or about us.

"I can't right now," I admitted.

Kaiba nodded but didn't say anything else. That was par for the course. We still hadn't talked about that kiss. It had hung over us since we had almost done it, taking on a life of its own, until I was sure it would become the centerpiece of some new challenge. But none had appeared. Or was the game subtler than that? A challenge would have been a relief.

I wondered if Kaiba was aware of how closely he stood to me, of how often his hand brushed against mine, drifted across my shoulder or back. Probably not, or he would have controlled his movements more carefully.

Every time his gaze dropped to my lips, I felt the urge to press them against his. But then I thought of the waif-like ghosts I'd met – and of how alone they'd been, how fragile beneath the hard surface they presented to the world, and I'd held back. I wanted Kaiba. I was pretty sure he felt the same. But those little phantoms hadn't known how to want anything but Mokuba's safety, and I wasn't sure anything had changed with the years.

If there was one thing I'd learned since entering this game it was that if Kaiba was even braver than I'd known, he was also more brittle… sleeping badly when he slept at all, pushing himself too hard, listening for too long to whatever harsh voices were echoing in his head… refusing to share any of it, even with me. I remembered applying a healing salve to Kaiba's body, tracing his injuries, new and old, as he'd lain, stiff and tense beneath me. How he'd twitched every time I touched him, unconsciously preparing for an attack before forcing himself to relax.

I'd told Sugoroku that touch was special. Now I wondered, had anyone but Mokuba ever hugged him before? Even Sugoroku – who seemed to care about him – had held back. And if affection was an unknown and suspect thing – what must he make of desire?

I looked at the Puzzle hanging around Kaiba's neck, the proof we were joined somehow. I'd tried to learn from the other Items; I'd left the Puzzle untouched. But maybe if I knew who I'd been, I'd know what to do next.

"May I?" I asked, stepping forward, coming close enough to hold the Puzzle as it lay against Kaiba's chest.

"It's yours not mine," he answered, his voice surprisingly low.

At first all I was aware of was Kaiba… the warmth radiating from his body, the slight intake of breath as the back of my hands grazed his chest, the faint, pleasantly musky scent I'd come to associate with him. Then the pull of the present abruptly let go.

Unlike the last times, I didn't fall into a single scene, but a series of them, each one lingering only long enough for me to register it. A tall man, his face half hidden by the hood of his robe led a troop of soldiers on horseback; they were riding away from a burning village… I gasped as I saw Shadi and the previous incarnation of Seto pushing their way through a screaming mob. They stopped at the center of the crowd, staring in shock at the unconscious body of a young woman lying on the pavement, her silver-white hair fanning out around her. I'd told Sugoroku that he looked familiar. Now his double winked at Isis; the appreciative gleam in his eye was the same then as now.

The scenes were coming faster now… Bakura laughing wildly as he stripped the wrappings off a mummy… Seto calling up a strange monster… Bakura laughing again as he destroyed it. My council – or what was left of it – surrounded me. They were crying. I was in front of them performing a ritual that I suddenly knew would seal me in the Puzzle, would strip me of my memories…

And I still didn't know why.

Maybe it didn't matter.

Every time I'd starred into the Items, darkness had encompassed me. I saw now they'd been precursors to this moment of dissolution. I was losing myself… reflexes slowing… sight dimming. I was joining the darkness that was surrounding me, that was welcoming me into its embrace like a long lost son. I wanted to see Yugi again… to see Kaiba… to _see_ … but the pull of the darkness was too insistent. Yet instead of nothingness, I suddenly thought of that day in Kaiba's office and one of Pegasus' cards flashed through my mind – the gentle light falling from the clouds above. "Light of Hope" it had been called. But what good was hope without a future?

"Yami!"

It was Kaiba. Air whooshed into my lungs. I hadn't been aware of anything, even falling to the ground, but I opened my eyes to see Kaiba kneeling beside me. I had the oddest feeling he'd just lifted his head from mine. His fingers were at my neck, pressing just under my jawline. As I stared at him, his fingers slid to my shoulder. I gasped and leaned over coughing, then lay back down.

"What the fuck just happened?" Kaiba said.

"I saw death. My death. You were right. I almost chased the past right into my own grave," I said.

"You stopped breathing! I thought…"

I couldn't tell if the emotion in his voice was anger, or – more unbelievably – fear. Abruptly he swung one long leg across my torso, straddling me. His hands gripped my shoulders and pinned me to the ground.

"You're alive," he insisted. Before I could decide which one of us Kaiba was trying to convince, he leaned forward and kissed me. He did it slowly, almost experimentally, as if he wasn't sure what would happen, even as his tongue entered my mouth.

Kaiba's kiss was faintly bitter. Like the first drink of water from a fountain in spring, it carried the metallic tang of something that had lain unused and dormant for far too long.

He lifted his head slightly from mine.

"Yami…" he whispered. How could something said so softly hit me with the impact of a runaway train?

I grabbed his head and yanked it back to mine, where it belonged. I was sick of all the times we'd clasped hands, all the times we'd brushed against each other as we walked, the time we'd almost kissed. I wanted this moment beyond doubt.

I pressed my mouth against his, pushed my tongue past his lips, explored the interior of his mouth only to meet another contradiction: how could something be moist and incendiary at the same time?

I'd felt so many new things since coming here. This one was beyond imagining. I wanted 100 hands so I could feel every inch of Kaiba all at once, so I could devour him with one caress. Everything he stroked in turn… my neck, the hollow beneath the ridge of my collarbones, my chest, my nipples… left me impatient for the next touch, the next place his hand would land and claim.

I knew these feeling were my own. I hugged them to me. And I realized I'd gained the ultimate prize in this world: what I felt wasn't affection or respect or even desire – although it had all those things at its core – but a strange, intoxicating amalgam of them all. Sugoroku had said that touch was special. I'd agreed. I hadn't had a clue what touch was.

Kaiba's first kiss had been soft… tentative, almost. Now we were glued together as if our mouths couldn't stand to be parted, even for the moments it took me to taste Kaiba's neck or for his tongue to dip into the well of my ear… as if our tongues were made to be intertwined. I'd reveled in having a body… in feeling the sun and wind caress it… in feeling my own breath enter and leave. But those had all been such solitary joys. This had the heat and intensity of a duel, but the aim was not to triumph but to join. My mouth was made to explore Kaiba's, my hands to stroke his body, my skin to be touched in return.

How had the buttons on his shirt come undone? I didn't remember. I hadn't been conscious of our rolling over, but now I was the one straddling him; one knee was between his legs. One hand slid beneath his now opened shirt, had moved to play with the pinpricks of his nipples. His own hands had moved under my shirt and reached around to my back to hold me in place.

My lips followed the path of my hands, down the column of Kaiba's neck. My tongue tickled the hollow at the juncture of his collarbone, and finally circled each nipple in turn. At his harsh moan, I returned to possess his mouth again.

Kaiba's hands had been at my back, pressing me to him, keeping our hips joined. Suddenly, they shifted to my shoulders. Abruptly, he pushed me away. My head snapped back with the force of his shove.

I glared at him, too angry to yell. How could he lead me to this new world of touch and feeling, only to snatch it away… only to leave me empty, suddenly aware of the cool air swirling against my heated skin. I bit back a snarl. Kaiba had said often enough he wanted to beat me at something, anything… and denying what he was feeling – if he'd felt anything at all – while leaving me exposed, was a game Kaiba had to know he would win.

But the hateful person of my angry imagination wasn't the person Kaiba had grown to be. I knew that, but I was overpowered by the sense of loss, as if I'd been given my own body to suddenly feel alone inside of it.

Then I got a good look at Kaiba's face, and was glad I'd managed to contain my own anger. His expression was open for once; the mixture of desire, frustration, guilt, shame and confusion was as easy to read as the attributes on a duel monster card. It was hard to feel anger – or anything but wonder at how beautiful Kaiba's face was when it was this unguarded.

I knew what word was going to escape before he spoke…

* * *

**KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

I gasped in shock at how abruptly things ended, even though I was the one pushing Yami away. It stung, anyway. I didn't blame Yami for glaring at me. I'd never refused to follow-through on something I'd begun before. Then as I watched something – understanding, maybe – came into his face. My arms ached with the effort of holding him in place, slightly away from me (and how the hell had he wound up on top, anyway?) but I couldn't let go; it was all I could do to keep from yanking him back down, to reclaiming his body's heat.

I gasped the word out like a drowning man…

"Mokuba…"

Shit.

Whenever I invoked Mokuba's name, whenever anyone guessed just how much he meant to me, bad things happened. Pegasus… Gozaburo… hell, going all the way back to the orphanage bullies… everyone knew enough to zero in on him. I closed my eyes and saw myself telling Mokuba that the way to be happy was never to reveal your feelings. He was so close I could have reached out and ruffled his mop of hair. Abruptly I saw Gozaburo's face the night we'd arrived at the mansion; I heard him asking, "Why did you bring along the little mouse?" knowing all the while that the wrong answer could prove fatal…

Why was I even thinking of this crap? It was okay. Yami knew all that. He wasn't Gozaburo. He wasn't like anyone I had ever met before. I could trust Yami. I knew that, but believing it was harder, even though Yami had proven it over and over. I was safe with him… if such a thing as safety existed.

A different face flashed before my eyes – Mokuba's as he asked me to let my bitterness and hatred sink into the ocean along with the ruins of Alcatraz.

I hadn't had an answer for Mokuba then. I still didn't.

I swallowed and opened my eyes. Yami's worried face was above mine. He was still too close.

"Kaiba? Are you all right?" he asked urgently

I tried for a sarcastic comment, but nothing came to mind. I wasn't mad at Yami anyway, but at myself for rolling around on the ground with him when I didn't know where Mokuba was. Sugoroku and Noa had both said that Mokuba had been okay when they'd checked in on him… but how did I know that was still true? Anything could have happened. It wasn't like he'd reached a safe house where at least I'd feel like I was still looking out for him instead of shoving him aside in my rush to grab what I wanted.

Protecting Mokuba had always been my first responsibility. And here I was hyped up over Yami, having to hold myself back from kissing him again, unable to stop remembering how unbelievably good it had felt to put everything aside, to just let the sensations wash over me. I shrugged as well as I could while still holding Yami up like I was bench pressing him.

"I understand," he said.

He probably did. Yami shifted so we were side by side; his arms were around me, but loosely enough that I could have easily moved away. He was holding me, but at the same time I had space and air.

"How the hell can you do this while Yugi's out there?" I demanded.

"You judgmental bastard! Like you're the only one who's worried about someone you love?" Yami yelled. Yami had been furious at me often enough, but seen up close like this, he looked even madder than usual. He tightened his grip on my arms, his fingers pushed past the muscle to find the bone. I frowned. I'd been determined not to piss him off, when he wasn't the one I was mad at, but I wasn't going to back down either.

"I know that, asshole! That's why I asked – how can you do this?" I repeated.

He relaxed his grip and smiled, although I had no idea what was funny. "Oh," he said. "For once you were asking a question, not hurling an accusation." He paused and looked at the sky somewhere over my right shoulder. "Yugi's never very far from my thoughts. But he's strong… stronger than I am in a lot of ways, more balanced, more intuitive. At first I thought I had to take care of him, that without me he'd be helpless. I was right to protect him, but wrong about everything else. I trust him to take care of himself."

"It's always been Mokuba and me," I said. Yami knew that; I wanted to tell him anyway.

"And it's hard to let go of that, isn't it?" He paused again. "But Mokuba isn't the only Kaiba brother you need to take care of."

I didn't bother pretending he was talking about Noa. After all, in one way or another, Yami had been saying that for a while. I wasn't sure I was ready to listen, but unexpectedly, I didn't want to argue the point, either. I half expected Yami to pull me closer, to try to take up where we'd left off, since we weren't yelling and it was pretty obvious I wanted him, even if I knew I shouldn't want anything but Mokuba's safety right now. But we both knew I was hungry for everything I'd just pushed away… his mouth on mine, insistent, driving out anything but the taste of him on my tongue… his hands, sure and graceful as in a duel, caressing me… finally feeling the strength hidden in his slender body as it pressed against mine.

And it was Yami's nature, as much as mine, to press his advantages home.

Yami backed off slightly instead. He didn't let go, but he didn't lean in either. I stared at him, confused. Yami liked being in charge as much as I did. And here he was, leaving the decision up to me, letting me call the shots on what happened next.

I didn't get it.

"It's okay, Kaiba. We'll find them. They'll be safe," he said.

My name suddenly sounded so formal.

"You know better," I said. "There are no guarantees."

"You created this world. No matter how it's been twisted, I don't believe it would hurt Mokuba."

"Why not?" I laughed. "I did."

There was a pause.

"Damn," I said. "Why haven't I wound up at Death-T every time I entered this damn world? Why haven't I seen Mokuba's face in that Death Simulation chamber following me everywhere, instead of the Wicked Worm Beast?"

"Are you really afraid you'd try to kill your brother again?" Yami asked.

I stared at him; I'd never stood still long enough to ask myself that question.

"No. I may fail Mokuba, but I'll never betray him again," I said. For the first time it was a statement, not an oath. It wasn't that simple, of course. But for now, it would do.

Yami shifted positions again. He sat up. He wasn't pushing me away though like I'd done to him. I wasn't sure how he did it but he maneuvered so my head ended up against his side, almost in his lap. Yami should have been angry. It was the first time I'd ever called a halt in the middle of a match. Hell, I was pissed off enough at myself for the both of us – for starting, for stopping, for wondering what would have happened if Yami had pressed the point. And here Yami was, holding me, giving me room, telling me that everything would be okay – and not expecting a return on any of it. Was this some part of his friendship code that I hadn't gotten around to reading yet? And did any of that apply after his tongue had been down my throat?

"You can move away now," I said.

"Why? I'm comfortable," he answered.

I didn't need to look up to know he had that smug smile on his face.

"You don't need to play nice. We seem to have established we're going to jump each other while Mokuba's out there somewhere," I pointed out.

I could feel Yami vibrating against me as he sighed. His hand briefly stroked my hair. Like everything else this night, I liked it, but also like everything else, it was too much; I was too aware of each stroke to feel comfortable. Before I could decide which outweighed the other, his hand dropped to my shoulder.

"I want you," Yami confirmed, "but that's not the sum of my desire. Sometimes, it's enough to be able to hold on to the people you care for."

His words reminded me; he'd been a spirit, unable to do that very thing. I reached up and quickly circled his waist with my arms before dropping them back to my sides. Yami's hand returned to my hair.

"Get some rest, Kaiba. We'll figure it all out. I promise," he said quietly.

Was it this place? The unfamiliar familiarity of having my hair stroked? Whatever the reason, I trusted him. I closed my eyes, for once ready to sleep.

* * *

_**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter through all its revisions.** _

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I was a little worried that this chapter was too long, but before I showed Kaiba literally being unable to put aside his worry over Mokuba – and feeling guilty for being involved in his own needs and desires – I wanted a flashback that showed one part of why this feeling might be so engrained. I think there's more to it of course – Seto from a very young age believed that if they were going to stay together, everything in him had to go all out to accomplish that, and I think concern for himself was probably the first casualty in that drive. I also think that as difficult a time as he would have admitting to, or feeling comfortable with desire, he'd have an even more difficult time understanding affection.

**Mokuba Game Note:** Figuring out what game Mokuba would be drawing was more difficult than I had thought. Given that he was playing chess at five, I figured I had some latitude in terms of what would be age appropriate.

At first I thought of having him draw a chess board, but I realized that not only was that the one game Seto was likely to be allowed to keep, but I had already shown Seto and Gozaburo playing chess in Seto's room in an earlier chapter ^^;;;;;;; I considered Duel Monsters partly because Mokuba draws a Blue Eyes White Dragon card for Seto, but given Mokuba's skill level (or more precisely, his lack of skill at Duelists Kingdom) I doubted Seto had ever taught him to play, and I have a hard time imagining them playing together. I ended up picking Mancala because it's a fairly simple game to draw, and as a math/logic game I figured it would appeal to Seto, and might have been something they'd played together. I did get a kick out of the idea that Gozaburo would look at a seven year-old kid's craft project and then essentially say that it looked like something a child would draw.

**Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my Live Journal account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated.

_As always, comments would be adored…_


	26. Kaiba Evolution

**CHAPTER 26: KAIBA EVOLUTION**

 _Like the improbably incognito twins or girls pretending to be boys pretending to be girls in a Shakespearian comedy, it's easy to blink right past reality – even when it's doing handstands to get your attention. In Disney's "Mulan," does army captain and eventual love interest Li Shang miss seeing who Mulan really is because he's too focused on what he needs her to be: the perfect proof that he's capable of turning his raw recruits into an army? And yet, Mulan was the ideal soldier just as surely as she was a girl. Sometimes the eyes of need see accurately as well._

 _In a more perfect world we'd always see our hopes mirrored in the people around us. Alas, as the fact that Brussels sprouts are better for you than chocolate pudding would indicate, the world is rarely perfect. In the days leading up to Death-T, Kaiba looks at Mokuba and sees someone poised to betray him; Jounouchi looks at Kaiba and sees someone who doesn't deserve a second chance. Sometimes, like a child shoving his peas onto a sibling's plate when no one is looking, the things we see in others are the things we're most afraid of finding in ourselves._

 **KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

I woke up with my head in Yami's lap, hugging him. He was still stroking my hair. I'd been out a couple of hours. I wondered if Yami had stayed like that the whole time. He must have been bored out of his mind.

"Get some sleep," I told him as I got up.

"I have one thing to do first," he said. Yami came over to me and reached up until his hand cupped the back of my neck, right where it met the base of my skull. He just let it rest there a moment, leaving the decision up to me. I leaned in until our lips met. My mouth opened for his tongue as if last night had already become a habit. It was brief.

"Good night," he said as he lay back down. It didn't take him long to fall asleep. I paced the ground. Part of me wanted to sit down next to him, play with those crazy stalks of hair and see if Yami would hold on to me again and … but I couldn't sit still.

I ended up studying the Puzzle instead. In all the time I'd been wearing it, I'd avoided checking it out. It was beautiful; the eye at the center was hypnotic. Staring into its depths, for the first time it seemed like a fitting container.

It was strange to be so aware of my own lips. They felt strange, slightly bruised… almost like someone had back-handed me across the mouth. That was absurd, of course. It had been ages since anyone had gotten that close.

Except Yami.

Except last night. Except this morning.

This slight tenderness must have been caused by the pressure, I decided, remembering the feel of Yami's lips on mine.

I wasn't sure what had happened, even though I'd been the one to start it. Yami had been lying on the ground, not even breathing. One minute I was ready to start CPR if I had to, the next I was engaged in a different kind of mouth to mouth resuscitation.

The classics I'd been force-fed had mentioned kissing, of course. And it was hard to find a movie that didn't harp on its joys. Unsurprisingly, all of those books and movies had lied. Afterwards the participants never felt as unsettled, frustrated and flat out angry as I did right now. It was as if that kiss had shone a light in a dark hole that I hadn't known existed even though it was at the center of my life.

For the first time I wanted something that wasn't about Mokuba or Kaiba Corporation or even winning. I wanted Yami's hands on me, his mouth on mine. And more, I wanted him to hold me afterwards, which was pretty fucking unnerving. I frowned. I got the sex thing; it had a clear goal and its own definition of winning. But the rest… the hugging, the hair petting…it didn't make sense.

I could write off wanting sex as inopportune hormones or as an aberrant behavior brought on by shared danger or even as the game finally making me lose my mind, but that wasn't the whole picture. What I wanted was as hard to define as it was to dismiss. I couldn't deny that as exciting as groping Yami had been, holding him… being held… had unexpectedly been just as powerful. I'd felt stronger in Yami's arms, as though we could take on anything as long as we had each other's backs.

Yami kept insisting we were friends. I guess that meant he liked me. And his expression this morning (nauseatingly enough) could only be categorized as… fond. I couldn't remember anyone ever looking at me like that. Of course no one had ever kissed me like that, either. I liked it, but it made me feel like I'd fallen asleep on an ant hill instead of in his arms. Affection was just so fucking alien.

I knew what Yami would say: that friends look out for each other. But wasn't needing to be looked out for a sign of weakness in and of itself? I remembered Gozaburo, in my mind during that chess game, calling me Yami's bitch for needing his help. How was my liking him liking me, any different? I knew if I asked Yami why he'd been nice, if I asked him if he thought I was so weak I needed him to give a damn, we'd end up in a fight. I was pretty sure he'd take it as an insult or he'd be disappointed I couldn't just accept his friendship without looking for a price. Even if he managed to keep from yelling, I'd hear the disapproval in his voice as he growled my name. For once, I didn't want that.

I didn't regret stopping things. I couldn't, not when Mokuba was still out there and I didn't know he was safe. Yami had told me that protecting the people who are crucial to us makes us stronger. I believed that. I'd seen it in action. But he'd also told me I had to look out for myself. He acted like that wasn't a contradiction.

I couldn't resist summoning Noa. I usually tried to ration myself to calling him once a day. I told myself that I didn't want to be dependent on him, or to let him see how badly I needed his information. But that wasn't the whole truth… I didn't want to use Noa either, just because he had an ability I needed – and just because he'd made a promise to my brother. But I needed to know if Mokuba was okay, as if my kissing Yami had put him in danger somehow. It hadn't. It was a stupid thought.

Noa told me that Mokuba and Yugi were okay as soon as he arrived. I had to remember to let Yami know when he woke up. Noa paused before leaving. Then just like the last time I'd called him here, he asked me a question: "What did your father… your biological one I mean, do when you misbehaved?"

I didn't like talking, but I owed Noa an answer. And unlike everything else that was going on, obligation, at least, was familiar. It was calming. I thought for a minute, trying to remember that far back. "Before my mom… before Mokuba was born, he'd sit me down and talk. He didn't believe in hitting his kids." I shrugged. "It always ended the same way, with me feeling like crap and promising to do better. Afterwards… I don't remember him noticing anything we did."

It occurred to me his questions might have a point after all – that he was trying to piece together a portrait of a normal family. I bit back a laugh. It was his bad luck that he'd decided to use me for his reference material.

Noa bowed. "Thank you," he said as he disappeared.

I thought of Sugoroku asking me if power and strength were the same. Maybe it was easy to confuse them when you grew up with someone who had neither.

Yami would be awake soon. Already he was moving restlessly, almost opening his eyes before sliding back into sleep. I turned away from him again. It was time to double check the card inventory. I did it every morning. I wasn't going to shirk my tasks just because we'd kissed a bit the night before. What would be the point in that?

I whirled around, expecting to see the Wicked Worm Beast, but he wasn't there. Since getting chopped to bits didn't seem to be on his morning schedule today, I went back to calling up the game's Duel Monster inventory. It didn't take long to notice the change. Four cards – the last four cards in Pegasus' latest release – had been added. I reached out for the young horse, Fledgling Grace. I frowned. Someone had uploaded the data, but I couldn't add him to my roster or even pull him out to look at him. The colt stayed within the card's borders even as he shook out his wild black mane and stamped the ground with his wobbly legs.

I missed Mokuba.

I was getting used to the way this game suddenly called up the past and made it so real I had to remind myself that the vision right in front of my eyes was fake.

Mokuba was only eleven months old. I'd been watching him for days, ever since he'd taken his first steps. He wasn't doing very well though. The same thing happened every time. He'd crawl over to the couch then pull himself upright. He'd take a couple of steps on his own, then sit down abruptly. He'd looked so startled each time, I hadn't been able to keep from laughing. He'd join in, and then go right back to the couch and pull himself up again. I'd figured out that it didn't hurt when he fell. His butt was pretty well cushioned by the diaper. It had bothered me though, the way he couldn't get the hang of walking. I remembered worrying that if he couldn't do something as easy as walking he'd be totally lost when he had to learn stuff like reading or counting.

I'd stayed awake one night to catch my father. I was usually asleep by the time he got home from work, but I couldn't wait for the weekend. When I saw him appearing right in front of me as this vision played itself out, I drew in a breath, almost forgetting I was still in my virtual world and that my father was still dead. He had my height and Mokuba's black hair, although his was as neat as a salaryman's usually is. He had Mokuba's lavender gray eyes too. There were dark circles under them.

Predictably, the first words out of his mouth were, "What are you doing up at this hour, Seto? You should be asleep!"

"I wanted to talk to you. It's about Mokuba." I ignored his slight frown at the mention of my brother's name.

"He's not walking right," I continued. "Every time he tries he falls down. The most he's managed is eight steps. I counted."

"He'll be okay. His bottom's padded," he said.

"I know. I figured it out. That's the problem. His diaper's too big and puffy. It pulls him off balance. It's not aerodynamic." I said the word slowly. I smiled, remembering. It had been one of my favorite words, and I'd rarely gotten a chance to use it.

I focused on my father's face. I didn't remember him ever looking at me like that – the way I sometimes saw Sugoroku look at Yugi. Had I recorded the scene in my memory without noticing? Or was the game adding things that had never happened?

"Good try, Seto. It's not easy working 'aerodynamic' into a sentence, is it? But your brother's not an airplane or a racing car. It's much more important for a diaper to be absorbent than aerodynamic."

"I know, but that just makes things worse. When it gets wet, it gets so heavy it drags him down. Not that that happens a lot. I keep him clean," I assured my dad.

He reached out and pushed the bangs out of my eyes. I remembered my mother doing that.

"You're a very good big brother. Mokuba's lucky he has you." He sighed.

I liked it when he noticed me, but I hated it when he said that, like Mokuba didn't deserve being taken care of.

"I love him," I said, almost defiantly. Watching the scene, I remembered saying the words; it was still strange to hear them.

I'd expected my father to turn away and head off to his bedroom, loosening his tie as he went. It was what he usually did when we talked about my brother. That night though, he'd surprised me. He'd ruffled my hair again and said, "You don't need to worry about him so much, Seto. He'll be fine. Falling down is part of the process."

Just when I'd forgotten he was there, Yami's voice broke into my memory…

* * *

 **YAMI'S NARRATIVE**

I woke up to see Kaiba standing with his back partly towards me. He was staring at an array of cards, oblivious to everything except the duel monsters in front of him. He was ignoring me so completely I might as well not have existed.

I'd felt so in sync with Kaiba last night, a connection that was akin to and yet insistently different from my bond with Yugi, intoxicating in its strangeness. And now it was morning and I was alone, acutely aware of just what a solitary thing a body is.

I rubbed my lips together, remembering the feel of Kaiba's mouth against mine. My tongue darted out and licked them, as if Kaiba was still a breath away, ready to open his lips to mine, ready to let me explore his mouth again, ready to let me claim it. It hadn't been enough to feel my own body… I'd wanted to possess Kaiba's as well. I'd wanted his blood pumping just as hard as mine, his breath to heat to the same degree, his skin to warm under my touch, all his senses to rush downwards, leaving him as achingly aware of me as I was of him. I refused to be a phantom.

Kaiba's face was in profile. I wondered what he was staring at so intently. I couldn't see the cards in front of him; it was like seeing a computer monitor from a bad angle. I caught Kaiba's smile as it scurried tentatively across his face, afraid to make its home there.

"Seto… you're smiling," I said.

How had his given name slipped out – a name I'd never used before?

Kaiba stiffened at the sound of my voice. His smile faded. When he spoke, he was all business.

"I saw Noa. Mokuba and Yugi are fine," he said, turning towards me. His eyes were as flat and inexpressive as his voice. Kaiba rushed on, not giving me time to ask why he had summoned Noa again, so soon. "New duel monsters have been added. You remember the cards I was working on right before we left? I added them to the duel disc database and sent them to Industrial Illusions – but I never uploaded them to this game. But here they are, all the same. It's weird though. Only the last four cards have been added and they don't work properly."

I expected him to go for the Shimmer Dragon. Kaiba surprised me by reaching out for Fledgling Grace instead. His hand passed through the card.

"Look," he said. "I can see them, but I can't add them to my roster."

"You ignored the dragon for a _horse_?"

He looked as close to embarrassed as I could imagine Kaiba ever looking.

"Fledgling Grace reminded me of Mokuba," he muttered.

I laughed. "Yeah, that mane of hair does look a bit like your brother's."

Kaiba looked even more uncomfortable. He shifted his feet, briefly looking a bit coltish himself.

"Not just that. The way he moves. It reminds me of Mokuba when he was just learning to walk."

Kaiba still looked uncomfortable, but the slight smile was back on his face as he thought about his brother. He looked open, even a bit vulnerable. I liked the view.

"That sounds like a happy memory," I said cautiously.

He looked startled. "It is. I haven't thought of it in years. At first Mokuba would hold my hand for balance. Then one day he just let go. He took five steps on his own, then turned and landed right back on his butt. He looked so surprised." Kaiba shook his head. "I can't believe how completely I'd forgotten,"

"You can't discard your past and hold onto it at the same time. Do you really want to be an amnesiac? I don't recommend it. Some things shouldn't be forgotten."

In all of our duels Kaiba had never retreated, never went into defense mode. Until now.

He shrugged. His face reset itself in its usual unrevealing lines, his voice regained its brisk, impersonal tone. "I'm trying to keep up with our card inventories. I designed the game so that once a duel monster is sent to the graveyard the player can't get it back for the rest of the session without using a Monster Reborn – and we still only have access to three of them – or another Spell or Trap card. That's still true. But I never intended for a session to last this long or include so many challenges. The longer we stay here, the more likely it is we'll blow through our favorite cards."

"Maybe that's not a bad thing, Seto," I said. "Isn't that what this game is about… breaking old patterns and exploring new things?"

This time I used his name deliberately, hoping to provoke a reaction. He ignored it again.

"I was hoping these four duel monsters would be available to us. They look pretty powerful. But putting new cards in your deck is always a risk. Shaking up a strategy that works is usually a fucked up move," he answered.

"You can't look to the future and be afraid to change the present," I pointed out.

"I'm not afraid of anything!" he snarled.

"Aren't you?" I grabbed him and pulled him to me. I was much less gentle than when I'd kissed him goodnight earlier. Just like before, he responded to my touch, leaned in into my hold. How could he be so distant one moment and kiss me so hungrily the next? I forgot everything but the feel of his mouth open to mine, the feel of the muscles of his shoulders and back under my hands. As I kneaded his shoulders I felt them bunch with the wrong kind of tension, even though his mouth was still glued to mine.

I released him and stepped back.

"I get it, Kaiba," I said. Something flashed in his eyes. I wondered if he was disappointed or relieved I'd gone back to calling him "Kaiba." I continued, for once over-riding whatever comment he'd been about to make. "You're worried about Mokuba. You're not any more used to all this than me. But you're not going to pretend last night didn't happen." I ran my hands down my torso. His eyes followed my every move; his lips parted slightly in response; he was still breathing heavily. "My body was real enough to feel everything that happened. So was yours and you know it. But here you are pretending it was all just another illusion. I expected better from you."

"Don't tell me what to do!" he yelled.

"Don't act like I don't exist!" I shouted back.

"Stop accusing me of that! I thought if last night convinced you of anything it was that you – and your body – are all too incredibly real to me!" He took a step towards me, stopped, then stepped forwards again and put his hands on my shoulders. "And if I was going to insult you I'd do it to your face, not by ignoring you."

I reached up and brushed his hair back from his forehead before cupping his cheek in my palm.

"Stop looking at me like that," he muttered.

"Like what? Like I want you? Or like I care about you? Which bothers you more?"

"I'm not Yugi or any of your friends. I've never bought into the whole power of unity thing and you know it… I've never understood how relying on someone wasn't a weakness, no matter how many duels you and Yugi won because of it," Kaiba said. Despite his words, his grip tightened on my shoulders. I rested my free hand against the small of his back, just above the waistband of his pants. My other hand was still caressing his face.

I'd read Kaiba's distracted mood as an attack. Instead he'd been fighting his own battle.

"You're not your adoptive father," I repeated. "Let go of his values."

"And you should carry around a mirror just so you can check every time you doubt that you exist. Not that I'd take advice from someone who forgets to breathe occasionally, anyway," Kaiba said with a smirk.

I grinned back, conceding the point, pleased to see the fire return to his eyes, erasing the blank, shuttered look he'd worn all morning.

He paused, shrugged and added. "So this is weird for you too, huh? I guess I can live with that as long as…"

"So long as we're in it together," I suggested, just as Kaiba finished by saying, "As long as you're just as fucked up about it as me."

* * *

 **JOUNOUCHI'S NARRATIVE**

Anzu was with Pegasus. He was painting her portrait or something. I didn't like it, but as Anzu had pointed out I didn't have to. And I didn't need her to tell me Pegasus had been helpful. But that didn't mean I trusted him. He'd finally finished our avatars, but the first time I'd used it had been a bust. All I saw was a bunch of landscapes with no one in them but other NPCs. A couple of hot girls, but no Yugi. We had to ration our time on them. The circuitry or whatever wasn't made for any kind of heavy duty connection between the lab and the virtual world.

Me and Honda were spending a lot of time in the Kaiba Corporation computer lab. It was the closest I could get to my friends. I couldn't get used to being able to waltz in and out like I owned the place, though. Isono was there, as usual. Me and Honda nodded to him as we came in.

Isono was tinkering with the one remaining, uncompleted pod. He had the top off of it and was messing around with the insides. His laptop was open. He'd check something on the screen, fiddle with the wiring, double-check the computer again, do something else, then go back to the computer, scroll down and start the process again. I swear that glaciers move faster.

I held up the bag of doughnuts I was carrying.

"Hi. Want one?" I offered. It's easy being polite when you know the other guy is going to say, "No."

Isono smiled slightly and shook his head.

"Sticky fingers and wiring don't mix well," he said.

"Your loss," I said as I stuffed another doughnut in my mouth. Honda wrestled the bag away from me.

"We'll save you one," he said to Isono.

Isono smiled politely and went back to work. I glanced at the wall clock. It was way after quitting time on any normal job. It suddenly hit me that no matter what time of day or night I wandered in here, I always saw Isono – and he was usually playing with that VR pod. And he didn't talk much, but I remembered him snapping at Pegasus every time he put Kaiba down. I wondered what was up with that.

"Hey man, what gives? Your boss is off in la-la-land. You could be at the movies every afternoon for all he'd know."

Isono had looked up briefly when I'd started talking. Then he dropped his eyes back to the guts of the VR pod.

"No, seriously… what are you doing with that thing?" I asked.

"Completing this pod so at least one of us can go to their aid," he said.

"You're an engineer?" I asked curiously. I'd thought of him as a flunky in a suit, the kind that always seem to go with rich guys like a human Rolex watch.

"Seto-sama's notes are very thorough." He hadn't really answered my question but I let it pass.

"You really think you can fix this hunk of junk?" I asked.

Isono didn't stop working. Just when I figured he was ignoring me again he said, "The number of people Seto-sama trusts with his life is so small. I would add to that number if I could."

"I know what you mean. Him and Mokuba are lucky they have you and Fubeta watching their backs." A jerk like Kaiba was lucky he had anyone that could stand him, but I managed to keep from saying that. It's a good thing Isono couldn't hear my thoughts. "You're here all hours of the day and night," I added.

"So are you," he pointed out.

"Yeah but Yugi's my friend. I've never had a real job – not like you, but I don't know if I'd go all out like this for any boss I've ever had."

"It's an honor to work for Seto-sama," he said. Isono was such a quiet guy, it was funny how fierce he sounded when he said that.

"You've been with Kaiba Corporation a while, huh?" I asked wondering what that was like. My dad had never kept a job longer than a month running.

"Since I graduated. My father worked for Kaiba Corporation all his life. He was Gozaburo-sama's chief bodyguard. I followed in his footsteps. To do anything less would have been an insult."

"Wow, that's rough. Your dad made you work here?" I asked.

"No. I never told my father how I felt. He was so proud of giving me a secure future."

"Maybe I'm lucky," I joked. "I don't have that problem. So it was kind of like a family business – you guys and Kaiba Corporation?"

Isono paused again. He seemed to come to some decision. At any rate he looked up from the pod and said, "My father gave his life to protect Gozaburo-sama."

"Oh shit, man. I'm sorry. That sucks. He sounds like a great guy…" I mumbled.

Isono nodded. "He was. How could I work anywhere else? It would be like saying his sacrifice was in vain."

"I don't get it. Why didn't you want to work here?" I asked, confused. Or maybe I was just surprised Isono was actually talking. I glanced at Honda. He looked just as weirded out as me.

"It was the old Kaiba Corporation – the one that made weapons, not games," Isono said.

I nodded. I loved video games – the more things blowing up the better, but I couldn't imagine working for a place that killed people by the thousands for real. Hell, even Kaiba had gotten all wound up just thinking about how Kaiba Corporation had made its money.

"What honor is there in a corporation that drops death on children from the sky?" Isono went on, like once he'd started talking he couldn't stop. "What honor is there in protecting its leader? Then Seto-sama took over. He gave me a future I could be proud of."

I felt bad for Isono, and I was really trying to get along, but no way was I letting that pass.

"Your precious boss tried to kill us! He built a fucking theme park of death!"

"Your friend had something that belonged to Seto-sama. He was a threat to everything Seto-sama had accomplished. You saw what happened when he lost one of your so-called games, how quickly the Big 5 turned on him. Seto-sama needed to hold on to his victories that tightly, to fight back that hard. It's the world we were raised into."

I snorted. I was pretty pleased with myself. Kaiba himself couldn't have done it better. "That's not what he likes to pretend lately. He keeps acting like all he ever wanted to do was give kids a happy childhood."

Isono looked me right in the eye as he said, "It's not a pretense. Nor is it a contradiction. Why do you think he desires it so devoutly?"

I didn't know what to say to that. I was pretty used to thinking of Kaiba as this jerk I hated and letting it go at that. The idea that Kaiba was fighting against the way he was raised, against becoming what everyone expected him to be, was just weird. I knew exactly what Isono was talking about, though. Even my mom figured I was going to wind up a dead-end loser like my dad. Hell, I'd been halfway to believing it myself before I'd met Yugi.

Honda surprised me by walking over to Isono. He knelt down next to him, and bent over the pod.

"Can I help? I've played around a bit with my motorcycle. I mean, I know it's not the same…"

Isono nodded and pointed towards his toolkit, saying, "I would appreciate an extra pair of hands."

I nodded. "Count me in, too. Like you said, our friends are in there. The sooner we can help them, the better," I said.

Isono smiled shyly. He looked a little embarrassed. It was more than I'd ever heard him talk and I suddenly was sure he hadn't said any of it to his boss.

I grabbed the bag back from Honda.

"But first, you can take five so we can finish off these doughnuts," I said.

As Isono reached into the bag, I couldn't help hoping he wouldn't pick the last cream filled one.

* * *

 _**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter!** _

_**Thanks to Indigo**_ for catching the typo in Chapter 25. Every time I change something after getting it back from being betaed I leave in a mistake. I corrected it when I uploaded this chapter. Thanks also for your comments: I'm a sucker for any kind of quests but I agree with you that quests for enlightenment are a favorite.

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** At some point, waaaaaay back when I started posting this I thought it would be really cute if all the chapter titles were the names of booster packs and structure and starter deck titles. It seemed like a fun game, and let's face it, there are enough dramatic all-purpose titles like "Rise of the Dragon Lord" or "Threat of the Demon World" to go around. I knew though, that given that this was going to end up being a long story, somewhere between chapter 20 and 30 I was going to be sitting here (like I am now) wondering exactly what was going through my mind when I decided this was a good idea.

I don't write very sequentially. When I start putting together a story I almost always start out with seemingly unrelated scenes and part of the task is figuring out how they go together and why. Kaiba waking up feeling like he's been smacked in the mouth was one of the earliest fragments I wrote. For me though, it really sums up just where Kaiba is at at this point – that the only reference he has for being kissed is feeling like he's just been hit.

 **Isono Note:** There's a scene in the DOMA arc of the anime where Kaiba tells Isono that since he's lost control of Kaiba Corporation, Isono doesn't need to call him Seto-sama any more and Isono replies that since Kaiba changed KC from weapons to games he'll always be Seto-sama to him. It's one of the few things he says besides "Duel Begins" and "Duel Ends" and I think I fell just a little in love with him when he said that. Anyway, I wanted to give Isono a bit of a backstory and look at why he might feel that way about Kaiba and Kaiba Corporation. We all know Isono is incredibly loyal; I thought it would be interesting to look at why.

 **Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my Live Journal account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated.

 _As always, comments would be adored…_


	27. Duelist League

**MANGA NOTE:** Early manga Yami was in full-out vigilante mode. He wasn't sure who or what he was, or even if he was a separate person from Yugi. For example, he refers to Sugoroku as "my" grandfather. He only had one remedy – a penalty game – for any offense, from the relatively minor to the criminally serious.

 **Reminder:** NPC stands for Non-Player Character.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 27: DUELIST LEAGUE**

 _From Mesopotamia's dashing duo, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, right through Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, whether you're defeating mountain guardians and heavenly bulls or blasting Death Stars, every hero needs a best friend or two. Monster destruction is, of course, a crucial element of friendship – but luckily it's ties are both stronger and more gentle… and surprisingly practical as well. As D'Artagnan and the three musketeers discovered, as important as it is to have a swordsman watching your back in a duel, it's just as necessary to have a friend to share a bottle with after it's over._

 **MOKUBA'S NARRATIVE**

We were walking though a meadow. There was a brook with some water-splashed stones nearby. They fit in so well with the rest of the scenery, I barely noticed them. Yugi was quicker on the uptake.

"Look!" he yelled, running forwards. "There's a spring with rocks! Your brother said those were the symbols for Anzu and Jounouchi's avatars!"

My brother had also said that each symbol might call up deadly monsters, but I guess Yugi forgot about that part because before I could do anything he reached for the summoning runes.

"Yugi! I knew you'd figure it out!" Jounouchi yelled as he and Anzu materialized. He smashed into Yugi. I guess Jounouchi had meant to hug Yugi, but he tripped and they went down in a heap. Even then, Jounouchi wouldn't let go.

"Stop it before you hurt him!" Anzu scolded. She was crying. "I was so worried," she sobbed. Yugi grinned at that. His face was a little pink. Jounouchi finally let go of him. Yugi walked towards Anzu, looking like he didn't know whether to wave or hug her, but she took matters into her own hands and grabbed him, smashing him to her. His face was ever redder when she finally let him go.

I didn't blame him. I'd gotten a good look at her outfit and I was pretty red myself. There was a hot pink sign above her head that said "Obligatory Bimbo" and I guess she looked the part. I tried to keep my eyes on the ground, but I couldn't help sneaking glances. Anzu's breasts were scary. There wasn't much covering them – just a tiny gold bikini top. The bikini bottom wasn't any bigger. She had these big high heeled black boots too – with more buckles on them than my brother and Yugi combined. And she had a gold and jeweled chain belt around her hips even though she wasn't wearing any pants.

It was hard to look at her and talk at the same time. I don't know how Yugi managed to keep his eyes on her face. It's one thing to see a video game character running around half naked. It's different when it's someone you know. Pegasus had put her face onto the avatar my brother had created, but I couldn't help wondering if that's what she looked like when she was getting ready to take a shower or something. Just thinking of Anzu that way was so weird…

"Uh… hi," I said, staring fixedly at the dirt. She bent down to hug me, but thankfully she left my face free. I'd been worried about breathing if she'd smushed me right between her… like she did with Yugi. I tried to think of something – anything – else before Anzu figured out what was going through my mind and slapped me.

"You shouldn't have stood right in front of the summoning runes," I reminded Yugi. "Remember, some of them call up monsters or wild animals."

"You mean you don't know if you're going to get us or some zombie freak? Great. I guess that's what happens when you play a VR game designed by a fucking psychopath," Jounouchi said.

I glared at him.

"Uh… sorry kid…" Jounouchi added, remembering, too late as usual, that I was there and that Nisama was my brother.

I would have shoved his words back in his face, but Nisama had already done that for me. I don't know if Nisama had Jounouchi in mind when he designed the NPC, but Jounouchi was stuck in a sheepdog costume – right down to the big paws he kept tripping over. At least he could stand up straight instead of having to be on all fours, but after he finished every sentence his tail wagged. The sign over his head, which had little puppies running around it said, "Flea-infested Best Friend."

I didn't bother to hide my laughter. Jounouchi deserved it.

"Cool outfit," I said. "It fits you."

Jounouchi glared at me but before he could get in a dig of his own, Anzu put her hands on her hips and said, "Oh never mind all that! All our outfits are stupid. We know that." She caught Jounouchi staring at her, or more accurately at her boobs. "Just what do you think you're looking at?" she snapped. Luckily Jounouchi was smart enough not to answer and after giving him another dirty look, she turned back to Yugi and said, "As if any of that matters when you're stuck here. How are you?"

"We're okay," Yugi said, but I could tell from her face that she didn't believe him.

"Honest," I added.

Anzu tapped her foot and looked impatient.

"It was scary at first," Yugi admitted. "That duel me and Kaiba had…" He shuddered. "I'm never putting a Slime Token in my deck. Ever."

"The first duel I had with Yami was no day at the beach, either," I put in quickly, before anyone could suggest that Yugi's problems were all my brother's fault.

"But it's gotten a lot better since then. Lately we've been handling every challenge pretty easily," Yugi added.

I waited for Yugi to tell Anzu that it looked like my brother had changed the game so that it wasn't as deadly for us – at least that's what Sugoroku had said – but Yugi didn't mention it.

"I'm so proud of you!" Anzu said, hugging him again.

Yugi couldn't help looking at me a bit sheepishly, but he was also grinning and blushing again. I felt like one of those cartoon characters who suddenly has a light bulb go off above his head. I think Yugi liked her.

"I don't understand, though," Anzu said. "How could… Yami… have his own body?"

"Wait! You're not wearing the Puzzle!" Jounouchi added. "What gives?"

It took us a while to sort it all out. They must have heard a lot of it from Sugoroku, but they listened just as hard as if they hadn't. Then they filled us in on how things were back home. Everyone was okay. Pegasus hadn't finished Honda's avatar or we would have had him here with us, too.

My brother would have said that hanging around catching up on things we mostly knew anyway wasn't an efficient use of the NPCs' limited time (not that he'd ever considered Yugi's friends useful to begin with), but I wasn't so sure. Yugi looked loads happier and that had to count for something. And I really liked seeing them, too. It made me feel like we really were on one big adventure and that everything was going to be okay.

Before we'd come here I'd always felt guilty any time I'd doubted anything my brother said or did. It seemed like the least I could do was agree with him. And maybe some small part of me was afraid that if I didn't he'd leave me, just like he did at Death-T.

But if Death-T had taught me anything it was that no matter what, he's always come back. And now that I was sure he loved me, I wanted something more: his respect. One thing I'd learned from watching Yugi and Yami: you didn't always have to agree with my brother to get it.

When I'd followed Nisama here, I'd done it because I'd just had to. I hadn't been thinking about his approval. Hell, I hadn't expected him to understand. If anything, I'd figured he'd be mad. I'd worried about it the whole time until we'd met up again. But he wasn't. I'd disobeyed him and he'd been proud of me. Even if monsters had started attacking us a minute later, it had still been awesome.

I let Yugi do most of the talking. Luckily I'd learned in school how to look interested and make the right noises while thinking about more important stuff. Like friendship. I'd never told anyone this – hell, there was no one _to_ tell – but I really didn't get the whole friends thing much better than Nisama. I'd finally figured out at Battle City that Yugi and his friends cared about each other like me and Nisama, but once I started thinking about friendship it was obvious it wasn't exactly simple.

I mean I really liked Yugi and his friends, but I didn't feel about them anything like I did about Nisama. Did second best friends really count? But I couldn't just dismiss them as also-rans, either. They may not have been as important to me as Nisama was – and sometimes Jounouchi pissed me off when he got on my brother's case – but they mattered a lot. And they were okay with that.

Then again, why wouldn't they be? Yugi felt different about Yami than he did about Jounouchi, not that I could tell which he liked better – and he was closer to both of them than he was to Honda. And Anzu cared about Yami, but she was weird around him, sometimes. She'd stare at him when she thought no one was looking. And she was right too – nobody but me noticed, not even Yami. And I thought Jounouchi was friends with Mai, but sometimes you'd think she didn't exist. And all of this made sense to everyone but me.

Yugi, Jounouchi and Anzu finally ran out of things to say so we all just stood there staring at each other. Then suddenly, Anzu put her hands to her mouth, giggled and jumped up and down. Everything jiggled. She looked even scarier that way. At the same time Jounouchi suddenly went on all fours then sat up like a dog begging for a treat and yelped.

Yugi's mouth dropped open.

"Every time we stand still for too long, this happens," Anzu complained.

"Well, it _is_ a standard video game feature for NPCs to have specific movements if they're on idle too long," I explained, still trying to avoid her eyes.

"When I see your brother I am so giving him a piece of my mind!" Anzu announced, stamping her foot. "It's bad enough I'm stuck in this cheesy outfit without having to giggle like some empty headed little…" she pointed to the word "Bimbo" above her head, "every time I forget to move for a few minutes. It's so annoying!"

I was going to argue that my brother hadn't been thinking of them when he'd designed the NPCs but looking at Jounouchi, who was still chasing his tail, I wasn't so sure of that.

Besides, Anzu looked ready to smack someone, and I was just glad I was the _other_ Kaiba brother.

* * *

 **SUGOROKU'S NARRATIVE**

The boys were watching the game shop. Jounouchi and Anzu had seen Yugi and Mokuba. They were okay. They were alive. When Yugi got home I promised myself I wouldn't let him out of my sight for at least a week, but I knew I was asking for the moon. Yugi was growing up; he was proving every day just how capable he was of taking care of myself. Much as I wanted to, I couldn't pin him to my overall cover.

Isono and Fubeta were in the computer lab when I entered. Fubeta was asleep on the couch. I'd tried it out myself. It was very comfortable. Isono was in his usual seat by the remaining VR pod. I nodded as I came in.

"I heard that you've acquired some helpers," I said to him.

"Honda would make an excellent technician, given training," Isono answered.

"I thought you had _two_ assistants," I said, grinning.

Isono hesitated. "Jounouchi tries hard. He's a loyal friend."

I nodded. "So are you. Finishing the pod was a wonderful idea."

"Thank you." Isono paused. "I would not presume friendship with Seto-sama," he said, awkwardly.

"He couldn't have always been Seto- _sama_ to you," I observed.

"From the moment I picked them up at the orphanage and escorted them to the mansion." Isono said. He smiled. "Mokuba-sama asked me my name. It was the first thing he said to me."

I was willing to bet Kaiba hadn't.

"Seto-sama spent the whole ride home telling his brother how he was going to change Kaiba Corporation from a weapons factory to a games company. He was confident nothing would stand in his way. I thought the mansion would crush that out of him. It didn't. He was stronger than that."

"Were you with them the whole time?" I asked, wondering how any adult could have stood by and watched what his life must have been like.

Isono's smile vanished. "Not until I was assigned to the mansion when Seto was thirteen. Before that I only saw him when I was part of the security detail at corporate events."

"It couldn't have been an easy childhood."

Isono didn't answer. He buried himself in the VR pod again, although I noticed he was moving even more slowly than usual.

"Did 48 hours have some significance?" I asked, remembering Kaiba's angry insistence that safety only lasted that long.

Isono looked up at that.

"Why are you asking?" he said cautiously.

"You were at the mansion for the last three years of Kaiba's adoptive father's life. They clearly left their mark on the boy." I paused, thinking of how often I'd sensed a prickly hurt deeply buried beneath Kaiba's customary arrogance… of how sometimes he seemed to be using his rudeness as a shield. "I'd like to help," I continued. "But I'd also like to know what I'm facing. I think I've stepped on enough land mines already."

"That was Gozaburo-sama's reward to Seto-sama for completing a project on time."

"Forty-eight hours of what?" I asked.

"Peace," Isono said quietly. The word dropped into the conversation like a stone in water.

"Did all of you forget he was a child?" I demanded.

Isono flushed, but met my eyes without hesitation.

"He was also the only one who had a hope of changing Kaiba Corporation. He deserved the chance to try. He didn't need to be reminded of his age. Even at thirteen he understood that more was at stake than one person's childhood."

I shook my head but let the subject drop. Kaiba had taken on an impossible task at a ridiculously young age – and had somehow seen it through. I had the feeling that even if he'd known the price before-hand, he would have paid it anyway. I was angry at Kaiba for throwing away whatever had remained of his childhood. At the same time I found myself giving in to a rueful, reluctant respect. He must have been quite a handful. Still was, now that I thought about it. I looked at Isono, patiently wiring the VR pod, and sighed. I'd spent decades studying ancient cultures only to find one just as alien, just as full of sacrifice, in my own back yard.

Hopefully I'd get to see all the boys again, soon. I went to the console and put the helmet on. Yugi and Mokuba weren't at any of my portals. I reminded myself that Jounouchi and Anzu had seen them earlier. They were okay. They were alive.

I was luckier with Kaiba and Yami. They were in a forest. As usual, I heard them before I saw them. I wasn't surprised to find that they were arguing.

"There's a cave hidden in that clump of trees," Kaiba announced. "You can just make out the outline. Or you could have if you were as observant as me. Remember when we get there you can't…"

"I know the drill," Yami interrupted, obviously annoyed. "Stand to the side in case a monster jumps out. Who booby-traps their own imaginary world? You deserve to be stuck here."

"Big talk for someone who's busy chasing his memories right into his own grave. Remind me to add a defibrillator as a stock inventory item next time. You deserve to be stuck right in here with me."

"I know," Yami said; I couldn't quite identify the not-quite playful note in his voice.

"Don't act like you just scored a point, asshole," Kaiba grumbled. There was frustration but surprisingly, no real anger in his voice; I could almost hear him smile. I wondered what was going on in this world.

"You're right," Yami said. "I might not have survived facing the Puzzle without you. And you know what? Relying on you didn't make me weaker. It freed me to push myself to the limit knowing you were there to back me up. It made me strong enough to do things I couldn't do on my own. You're looking for power and it's right in front of your nose."

Kaiba sighed theatrically. The sound was too dramatic to be completely serious.

"Remind me to cue this game to play sappy music every time you open your mouth," he said.

"I'm surprised you don't have a chorus of angels floating above us and singing your praises every time you make a move," Yami answered, the need to score a point off his rival back in his voice.

"It's penciled in for the Deluxe Edition," Kaiba said. It was hard to tell if he was serious or not. "We're almost there. Ready to see if there's a monster or an old man in the cave?" Kaiba laughed. "Same difference either way."

"For someone who insists you don't care if you see Yugi's grandfather or not, you're very quick to pick up on the signs to his portals, no matter how well they're hidden," Yami said.

I was sorry I couldn't see Kaiba's face. The thought that this impossible adolescent was reaching out to me was oddly endearing.

I knew better than to admit I had heard their conversation when I appeared in front of them. Instead I told them that Jounouchi and Anzu had seen Yugi and Mokuba and that they'd been fine.

Kaiba grimaced. "When you first told me about Pegasus altering the NPCs I figured Jounouchi would crash in sooner or later."

"But you're bothered by the idea?" I asked.

"Of course I'm not thrilled that Pegasus is messing around with my virtual world –it's been fucked over enough already." He frowned and glared at me as if I'd tricked him into admitting something so revealing. "But it's good to know Mokuba's okay. Changing the balance of the game worked out just like I'd planned," he added smugly. "After all, there's not much the game could throw at Mokuba."

Yami and I stared at him. Yami was the only one who spoke. There's a difference between age and maturity. I let Kaiba's statement pass unchallenged. For all his 3,000 years, Yami couldn't resist.

"What? Just how delusional are you?" Yami yelled.

"Leave my brother out of this," Kaiba ordered. The anger was back in his voice. I could almost believe that I'd imagined the lighter, almost-teasing tones I'd heard a few minutes ago.

"Even if I do, the game won't. Your brother helped you build a theme park of death. He tried to poison Yugi and Jounouchi," Yami said.

"Mokuba's not to blame for any of that. It was all my doing, not his. He knows that."

"You're wrong," Yami said flatly.

"I know my brother better than you do."

"You forget: I'm the one that's played this game with him, not you. Mokuba wants to be forgiven for what he did at Death-T – but he also wants to take responsibility for his part there. He's your brother, Kaiba. Would you expect any less from him?"

Yami's voice was much quieter as he asked that last question, but it was too late. Kaiba's hands were bunched into fists at his side, his whole body was coiled, ready to attack.

Kaiba snarled at Yami. "Stop talking about him!"

How had this fight erupted so quickly?

"It's okay, Kaiba," I interrupted. "You've done your best to protect Mokuba, and succeeded better than anyone could have expected. But…" I paused, trying to think of how to say this in a way Kaiba had a shot at understanding, "You can't protect children from everything forever, no matter how hard you try. And that's probably just as well. I hope I gave Yugi the love he needed to grow into the man he's becoming – but it was just as important for him to learn to deal with the things I couldn't protect him from. You can pack Mokuba's backpack for him, but he has to take the journey on his own. That's just the way life works, and no matter how much you want to – even you can't change that."

Kaiba didn't answer. But one glimpse at his immobile face, at the lips so tightly pressed together they had turned his mouth into a thin line, dispelled any optimistic hope that he agreed.

"At least he's with Yugi. That should make things easier," Yami said.

I didn't need to see the gleam in Kaiba's eyes to realize Yami had made the wrong move – or to doubt what was coming next. I braced myself as Kaiba said, "Ha! You think your precious other half doesn't have a trunk-load of shit of his own?"

"Yugi?" Yami said, startled.

"Maybe I know some stuff you don't. Like you said, I was the one playing this game with Yugi, not you," he taunted.

"Don't you think anything he said to you should be kept private?" I asked sternly.

"Like my brother's business was, old man? I didn't notice you protesting then."

I sighed, conceding his point. Part of me flinched at the thought that my grandson was burdened by guilt. It seemed so unfair. But I wanted to help if I could.

"You ready to man up, Yami?" Kaiba snarled.

"Fuck you, Kaiba!"

"Hypocrite! You think Yugi's never wondered just what happened while you were running around Domino in his body? Or why he did so little to find out the truth afterwards? Hell, given the electrocutions, maimings, and string of suddenly hopelessly insane people you left in your wake, he must have been working overtime at keeping his eyes closed not to notice."

"Don't you dare insult Yugi!" Yami roared.

"Yami? What did you do?" I asked, suddenly thinking of all those news programs – the ones Yugi always turned off quickly when I came in the room… remembering how pleased I'd been that Yugi hadn't come home from school beaten up since assembling the Puzzle. I'd never wanted to know more than that he was safe and gaining confidence by the day.

"I was trying to protect him," Yami said to me. "I was right to save him, but Yugi would have been more merciful to his enemies once the danger had passed. I know that now." He turned to Kaiba and his face hardened. "Every opponent in every penalty game had tried to hurt Yugi or his friends. They deserved what happened to them. So did you."

Kaiba grinned. "I'm not saying we didn't. Just that Yugi's paying for his refusal to face up to your actions until now."

Yami had hurt people. My grandson felt responsible. But some of those news reports came back to me… a killer had mysteriously died in a restaurant after holding some kids hostage… the bully who'd made life so miserable for Yugi at Domino High School had been found rolling in a pile of leaves babbling about money. I remembered that strange incident at the Domino Museum when my friend had attacked us. Had Yami been the one to save Yugi and Anzu's life then – just as he'd once saved my own? If so, how could I condemn him when the feeling uppermost in my heart was gratitude?

"Stop saying Yugi would ever be cowardly!" Yami protested.

"Who's talking about Yugi?" Kaiba sneered.

Their earlier bickering had amused me. This was different. They weren't trying to score points off each other. They were hurt and angry and lashing out. It was time to end it.

"Boys!" I yelled.

They both faced me with identical disbelieving expressions.

"Stop calling me that!" Kaiba hissed.

"Sit down, both of you," I said more quietly.

Yami bowed and seated himself on the forest floor, a pharaoh acceding to a request. Kaiba, of course, remained standing. I sighed, went over to a fallen log and sat. After another moment of towering over us, Kaiba compromised by leaning against a tree.

"Yugi and Mokuba have things to deal with. And you both have to respect that." I turned to Kaiba. "It should have been Yugi's choice what to tell Yami, not yours, and never in anger."

"He star…" Kaiba's mouth snapped shut.

Had Kaiba really been about to say, "He started it"? I bit back a smile, wondering if Kaiba had ever uttered those words before. The puzzled look on his face suggested he had no idea why they'd popped into his head and almost out of his mouth. I was sorry he'd managed to censor himself. Although he was a little old for it, everyone should get to utter childhood's oldest complaint at least once in their lives.

"The same is true for Mokuba," I said to Yami. "Do you really think he wanted you telling his brother anything he hadn't had a chance to himself?"

Yami looked at Kaiba. The taller boy glared back.

It wasn't just the fight; they were on edge today. I wondered what had happened to make them so much tenser.

"Have you boys faced another challenge?" I asked.

"No. And we're overdue. I wish one would get here already," Kaiba said.

"Not unless you count the Wicked Worm Beast," Yami said.

"Which I don't," Kaiba snapped.

"Of course you don't. He has interesting timing though. He shows up whenever something happens you don't want to deal with," Yami said. I was surprised at the raw anger in his voice.

Kaiba matched it. "Stuff it!"

"Enough!" I said. "I don't know what's gotten into you two, but you need to figure out why you keep tearing into each other like this and find a better way of dealing with it. Either that or rent a steel cage and go at it to your hearts' content."

I was expecting more protests. Instead they both flushed red. They looked at the ground then off to the side, then anywhere but at me – or each other. I stared at their embarrassed, averted faces, more confused than ever. Were they both that unused to being scolded?

"You shouldn't have insulted my brother," Kaiba muttered, his eyes still focused on a spot on the ground somewhere between me and Yami.

"I didn't and you know it," Yami said. Despite his words, his voice was surprisingly gentle. "I should have known I was hitting a sore spot though. Sometimes I get so angry that I feel so real and yet I'm still tied to the Puzzle as if this body is just one more mirage."

Kaiba looked up at that, switching his attention from the ground to Yami's face. I stared at Yami as well. The commanding presence I'd sensed at Yugi's duels had been Yami's. And here he was revealing his fears to Kaiba – who'd never made a secret of his contempt for any admission of vulnerability.

Yami caught a glimpse of my face and smiled. "Your grandson is a great teacher." He focused again on Kaiba. "Sometimes I wonder whether I'll disappear if you blink," he said softly.

Kaiba took a deep breath; his gaze hadn't wavered from Yami's face. "You trusted me enough to let me see your weak points. I didn't want to hurt you, exactly. It's just… sometimes when I attack it feels like self-defense," he finished in a low voice.

Yami gave Kaiba a quick hug. I wasn't sure whether Kaiba would tense up, freeze or glare. He did all three. It was the fourth thing, though – the one that I never would have included on my pre-arranged list – that surprised me. After the expected bunching of his neck and shoulder muscles, he relaxed. He leaned in. For a moment I thought he was going to return the gesture. That's when he froze, staring at his hands like he couldn't imagine how they had wound up on Yami's shoulders. The glare was aimed in my direction, probably because I'd witnessed his being human enough to be hugged. He turned his attention back to Yami.

"We'll figure it out together. And stop scowling at Yugi's grandfather!" Yami said.

"Good going Yami. Three thousand years of missing the point and counting," Kaiba said.

Kaiba didn't let go though. If anything he gripped Yami even more tightly. I didn't get to hear whatever comeback Yami had planned. NPCs could only spend a limited time on any encounter and mine was up. I managed to say a quick good-bye before vanishing.

I stayed in my chair in the Kaiba Corporation computer lab for a minute before getting up and letting Isono know I'd seen his boss. If Yami's admission of his own uncertainty had surprised me, Kaiba's had rocked me back on my heels. But as odd as this visit had turned out, it had been oddly comforting as well. Yami was a brilliant strategist. Kaiba's technical skills were undeniable. My breathing hitched just for a moment as I remembered his Death Simulation Chamber – even though it was getting harder to connect that terrible boy with the young man I'd just seen looking confused by something as simple as a hug. But if they were going to win, even their formidable talents wouldn't be enough. Yami and Kaiba needed to gain some insight along the way.

Maybe they'd begun their next challenge without realizing it.

* * *

 _ **Thanks to Bnomiko**_ for betaing this chapter and for introducing me to the idea that some NPCs and avatars in general have pre-arranged movements when they are on idle. (I hope I said that all correctly!)

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** There's this old 1950s or 60s sitcom called "Leave it to Beaver." (Admittedly, the title sounds more like porn than a family comedy.) Anyway the plot revolved around the youngest son, the improbably nick-named Beaver asking his dad a hypothetical question like, "Is it okay to lie?" each week. His dad, who never seemed to learn anything from episode to episode, instead of asking what the fuck was going on (although maybe not in those words) would give a general answer like, "Lying is wrong." Beaver would then implement his father's advice with predictably comically disastrous results.

Sugoroku reminds me a little of that here. He knows something's different and that Yami and Kaiba are much more on edge, but he has no real idea why or what is going on – much less that they're frustrated over having an abruptly ended make-out session. And yet a lot of what he says is oddly appropriate. It was a bit of a challenge to try to keep that balance going, since I didn't want Sugoroku to sound like he was playing matchmaker. The working title for this chapter was "Poor Sugoroku."

And I have to admit that writing, "Anzu's breasts were scary" was a real kick. Everyone should do that once, just because it's fun.

 **Review Note:** I reply directly to all logged-in reviews. I post responses to un-logged-in or unsigned reviews on my Live Journal account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated.

 _As always, comments would be adored…_


	28. Ancient Sanctuary

**Medieval Weaponry Note:** If there's one thing the Middle Ages had – in addition to nasty weapons – it's a variety of names to call each one. One particularly brutal looking one is basically a rod with a chain attached with a spiked metal ball at the end. It can be called a mace with chain, a morning star, and/or a flail, which left me perplexed which name to pick. But "flail" seems to be the name used in Dungeons  & Dragons, and as this story is about a virtual reality game, I figured I should show some respect for the granddaddy of all role-playing games.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 28: ANCIENT SANCTUARY**

 _A message is only as good as its messenger. Thousands of years ago, the Greeks fought the massively larger Persian army in a place bearing the once little known name of "Marathon." The Greek army won and sent their fastest runner, Pheidippides, homeward bearing the news of their miraculous victory. He delivered his message in the city square and died, ensuring his name and the race he ran would live on. (Although given the rather tragic ending, I'm not sure why it caught on so thoroughly.)_

 _As the need for unlimited texting shows, nowadays, messages are usually a lot more casual – not to mention less lethal. Luckily, they're also delivered far more efficiently than Friar Laurence trying and failing to tell Romeo that Juliet was alive – and have far less important consequences when they miscarry, since a missing a movie rates lower on the calamity scale than a vial of poison._

 _It's easy to take messages and their messengers for granted. But sometimes along the delivery route the road to friendship is being forged as well._

 **YUGI'S NARRATIVE**

Mokuba and me were walking through a field. It was pretty. Farmers were planting something in the background. Some cute girls were bringing them beer. As usual, they all stopped and waved before going back to work.

Somehow the game had… well, turned into a game. As hard as it was to believe – and as worried as we were about Yami and Kaiba – a lot of the time Mokuba and me were having fun. We'd just finished a duel. It was standard video game fare, the kind of early battles where you face a bunch of minions so you can build up your skills and confidence before tackling the head boss. Our opponents reminded me of the twins that Jounouchi and me had beat at Duelists' Kingdom, only I was with Mokuba and we'd used Ace of Swords to set up our win instead of Monster Replace and the Black Skull Dragon. But it had felt the same. Except that Yami wasn't here. A lot of our challenges lately had reminded me of the duels I'd fought with Yami, only now I was the one throwing the cards down. I was the one taking care of a partner – and a kid at that, when I'd never even babysat. I'd known I could do it, but it still felt good.

Grandpa had said Kaiba had tried to do something to make the challenges easier for us – or rather, knowing Kaiba – for Mokuba. We kept trying to figure out how that worked.

"This game ties into our thoughts… but do they have to be _bad_ thoughts and feelings?" I said slowly.

Mokuba stared at me. "It's no wonder you win so often. You don't think like anyone else."

"I know," I said. That I was different wasn't news. It was only lately that anyone had meant it as a compliment though.

"Your brother couldn't just say – make things easier for Mokuba," I continued. "And he couldn't delete anything that had already been done. Believe me, he tried. He was pretty good at working around whatever obstacles were in his way though – once he got done cursing, that is."

"He'd have to stay within the game's basic design," Mokuba said, nodding.

"And the game was designed to set up challenges based on our personalities, right?" I asked, trying for the hundredth time to sort it all out.

"So you think fighting monsters who're trying to kill him fits my brother to a T? Like he did it to himself?" Mokuba asked. His face said, 'I can't believe you just said that,' as clearly as if he'd spoken the words aloud.

I did actually. Kaiba wouldn't have listened to anything less than a life or death challenge. In many ways, Yami was the same. I sometimes thought he'd pay any price to get his memories back. Mokuba and I weren't like them. We weren't as ambitious, as aggressive, or as extreme. Maybe the game was giving each of us what we needed better than any of us had suspected.

I wasn't sure what to say though. Mokuba could get pretty defensive any time anyone said anything about his brother. And he was five years younger than me. But as much as Kaiba loved his brother, it suddenly occurred to me that he never treated him like a little kid. It wasn't just that he didn't tease Mokuba; he trusted him with the truth. Of course the thought of Kaiba sugar-coating anything for anyone – even Mokuba – was pretty funny.

"Well, it's what your brother's used to," I said.

Mokuba nodded glumly. "He always says that life's a battle," he agreed.

"What do you think?" I asked.

He shrugged. "It sure seems like it sometimes, but… I don't know. Maybe it's just that I hope that's not all there is to it."

"Yeah," I said. "It's like, I love dueling, but I like it best when I'm just playing my friends… like when I'm hanging out at recess with Anzu and Honda, and dueling Jounouchi. I always play my best, but just once, I wouldn't mind if Jounouchi beat me… just to see the look on his face."

"Ha! Like that's ever going to happen." Mokuba paused. "But if the challenges have gotten easier for us, does that mean they've gotten harder for them?"

It wasn't a new question. We'd been taking turns asking each other that for days.

I thought back to the challenges I'd faced with Kaiba. I'd almost been smothered by mud creatures, fried by dragon fire – and that didn't count Kaiba nearly strangling me to death before he realized it was me.

"I don't see how they could," I said. "Honestly though, I don't think your brother would care."

"Yeah, I can see him changing whatever he did, and not once stopping to worry about himself," Mokuba said.

"With Yami egging him on every step of the way," I added. "Let's face it, they probably high-fived each other when they were done."

Mokuba laughed at that and went back to studying the field as we walked through it. He had carried a mini-recorder into this virtual world. As we walked he kept pulling it out and making cryptic notes.

"What gives?" I asked.

"Well, originally I was going to play this game with Nisama. And it's always my job to look around and see if I can spot anything he missed or come up with ways to make it better. So I'm doing that now."

"But Mokuba, we're trying to shut this game down, not improve it!" I protested.

"Oh… yeah… right. Oh well, information's never wasted, is it? My brother will probably try again some time," Mokuba said cheerfully.

I rolled my eyes. It obviously hadn't occurred to Mokuba that not everyone would consider this good news. But the last thing I wanted to think about was tangling with another one of Kaiba's virtual worlds once we managed to get out of this one.

Mokuba suddenly shook my arm. "Look, Yugi! There it is! We finally found a safe house!" he said, pointing.

I looked at the little stone cottage. Puffs of smoke were coming from the chimney. I could smell a stew or something cooking inside. The flowers in the yard almost seemed to be waving at us.

"Come on!" I called to Mokuba as I started running towards it. I'd almost reached the gate in the white picket fence when Mokuba tackled me.

"No, not that place! I'd hate to think what kind of monsters my brother stocked that house with! Over there."

I looked at the charred ruin of a house. At least it had a door.

"You sure _this_ is the safe house?" I asked.

Mokuba grinned. "My brother's idea of one anyway. He says safe houses are for wimps. It's not like he was ever planning on using one. I just hope he remembered to put in beds."

"And a bath," I thought to myself.

As soon as we entered, Mokuba brushed aside the rubble littering the floor and uncovered a clock.

"We have to keep track of the time. I set the alarm just to be doubly sure we get warned in time. In 48 hours this place will switch from a sanctuary to a death-trap," he reminded me.

I sighed. "Just explain to me why your brother did that."

Mokuba shrugged. "He doesn't believe in safety."

We explored the house. It looked like it had been abandoned for centuries. It still had beds though, and the mattresses hadn't been eaten by the mice we could hear scurrying in the walls. They even smelled fine. Best of all, once we'd managed to pry open the door that someone or something had kicked in and then wedged back into place, there was an actual bathtub. With running water. I checked.

I'd just turned it off, sighing in relief when Mokuba yelled, "Oh, shit!"

"What's wrong?" I asked, running back to the bedroom.

"Noa! He can't come into a safe house – he's part of the game, not a player, remember? It'll keep him out just like it would a monster. I have to let him know where we are. It'll just take a minute."

I followed him outside. The door had barely closed behind us when Noa appeared.

"Look!" Mokuba said. "We found the first safe house! We can find the others from here."

Noa's eyebrows snapped together. He scowled at Mokuba. "Then why are you out here instead of inside? A safe house won't do you any good unless you're in it!"

"I was. I came out here so you wouldn't worry!" Mokuba huffed indignantly.

Noa smiled a bit sheepishly. "You're awesome! But go back inside now, please? I promise to tell your brother you're safe." His grin got wider as he said the last word.

"Our brother," Mokuba corrected automatically. "Thanks! Tell him we found the clock and set it on alarm, so he doesn't have to worry about us getting caught either."

"I promise," Noa said.

Mokuba waved and we re-entered the house. As the door slammed shut, he said, "It doesn't feel fair… you know? Us being here and Nisama and Yami being outside. How do you thing they're doing?"

"I'm sure they're making out just fine," I said. "Honest."

As I looked around it hit me. For the next two days we were safe and the biggest question in front of me was whether to take a nap or a bath first.

* * *

 **KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

I saw Noa once a day. It was a handy way to check up on Mokuba's safety. That he showed up each time earned my grudging respect. He clearly saw it as an obligation and was living up to it. And Noa never overstayed his welcome. He'd deliver his update and leave, hanging around only long enough to ask a question of his own, mainly about his father. He wasn't doing it to get under my skin; he was looking for something. I didn't mind balancing the scales a bit.

But I rarely thought about Noa himself or the time we'd spent trapped in his virtual world. I remembered it all. Tonight though, instead of reviewing it, looking for data that might help us get out of here, I kept thinking about the photographs that had been on Gozaburo's desk in the mansion, the ones I'd never seen until we'd ended up in Noa's virtual world. I'd always assumed Gozaburo was a cold-blooded bastard and that was all there was to it. But there were pictures of Noa on horseback, at the piano, sailing on a yacht, with Gozaburo at his side in all of them, smiling. There'd been too many of them for it to be solely for display purposes. I shouldn't have been surprised that Gozaburo wanted his heir to learn to do all the things upper class kids did. Except he'd never done any of that with me.

Had Gozaburo simply decided with Noa's death that it was a waste of time? Or was it just that I'd never been anything other than a means to an end, unimportant in and of myself except as a pacing rabbit to Noa's greyhound in his eyes? I laughed. I'd known the deal sucked even as I was making it. I just hadn't seen any better options. But for all of that, Gozaburo was the one who'd gotten cheated. He'd forgotten that his puppet had a brain… both of his puppets, really.

I wasn't surprised to see Noa appear. I'd been thinking about him after all. Or maybe – more disturbingly – I was getting a handle on how this game worked.

"Mokuba's safe. He and Yugi reached a safe house. It's the one that looks like a charred ruin," Noa said in a rush as soon as he appeared.

It was strange. Mokuba was my strength. I knew that. But just now, hearing the news, I was light-headed with relief; suddenly I was having a hard time standing. I exhaled sharply and drew in a fresh breath.

"Yami!" I yelled. "Mokuba and Yugi are in a safe house. They're okay!"

Yami came running up. I expected Noa to disappear, but he stood his ground.

"Thank you for letting us know," Yami said.

Noa nodded. He studied Yami.

"You're not Yugi. He believed in me. Even before I did, he knew I'd do the right thing. You didn't trust me."

"Yes," Yami answered.

The Noa I'd met in his virtual world would have ranted or blustered or tried to score points. Now he nodded, like he was sorting things out. For the moment at least, neither Noa nor I were going anywhere. We were, for lack of a better word, allies. I decided to try honesty as a game plan.

"I was thinking about you. And not just for an update," I said.

"About me? Or about my father?" he asked.

"On the theory that all roads lead back to him?" I parried.

He smiled briefly, but kept silent, unwilling to argue with the truth. All paths did lead back to Gozaburo, for better or worse, for Noa and me. But unlike Noa, my road also led to a future.

"I couldn't follow them inside," Noa explained. "I'm not a player; I'm part of the game. I'm barred from the safe houses."

I grunted. I was glad that part of my original design was still intact. It made sense. Gozaburo wouldn't have paid any attention to a safety system I'd never intended on using.

"I can't monkey with that," I told Noa. "I'm not sure I could change it anyway, but I'm not going to risk letting your father or any of the others in."

"It's worth it, just knowing they're safe – at least for the next 48 hours," Noa said.

"I can't change that either. The time limit is hard-wired into the game's parameters."

Yami rolled his eyes and groaned.

Noa nodded. "I know. Mokuba said to tell you they were both keeping track of the time. They found the clock and set the alarm."

For the first time it occurred to me: Noa and I had something in common beyond Gozaburo. We'd both known something about designing virtual worlds. I paused. I hadn't intended on talking about any of this, much less in front of Yami, but that was the way the cards had fallen and I was going to play the hand in front of me. Besides that groan and all the snide comments had pissed me off.

"Sugoroku… Yami… they all keep reminding me that I designed this game, that I could have created anything," I said.

Noa was the only person I could think of who might understand.

"But it's not that simple, is it?" Noa asked, seriously.

"No," I answered.

"None of us ever said it was simple!" Yami protested indignantly.

I ignored him.

"My world was stagnant. Nothing could grow or change there," Noa said. I wasn't sure if he was answering Yami or not.

"Do you still feel that way?" I asked.

"Not since coming here. Even at this, you've won. This world feels alive. It makes me feel like anything can happen, and I thought I'd given that up years ago." He turned to Yami. "But for all its flaws, my virtual world was a part of me. Asking me to create something different would be like asking me to be someone else. I didn't think that was how friendship worked."

I grimaced. Noa had put his finger right on the spot that festered and burned whenever Yami or the rest kept picking at all the things they hated about my program's design.

"Same here," I said. "This game is who I am. The basic parameters aren't going to change, and I'm not going to pretend my life is some fairy tale version just to make things more comfortable. Anyone who doesn't like it can just fuck off." I laughed bitterly. It was my usual deal with the world. I'd just never cared which one anyone picked before.

"Oh, is that aimed in my direction?" Yami asked sarcastically. "If there was one thing I'd change, it'd be the way you continually miss the point of whatever anyone tells you. I don't want you to become a different person. I want you to be the same stubborn asshole who designed this game to hit him as hard and fast as it could… the person who's always trying to grow… the jerk who plows through anything – even himself – that gets in his way."

"Wow. A compliment," I said. It was though and we both knew it.

"You know what I want? I want you to stop pretending you're still the same uncaring bastard I met at Death-T. You created this game because you're desperate to reach your future and you finally figured out you can't do it alone. I want to be part of your struggle, the way you've had my back when I've tested the Millennium Items. Guess what, Kaiba? This isn't a solitary game. You designed it to let people in, to let people help. You invited me here right from the start, and I'm going to hold you to that, every step of the way."

Yami had moved closer with each sentence as he'd screamed it. Somehow my hands had wound up on his shoulders again; my head was leaning into his. My whole body tightened just from standing this fucking close together. I jerked away. Noa was still here. He wasn't paying attention to us though. His gaze was inwards.

"Oh, no! Watch out! A challenge…" he said as he disappeared.

"What?" Yami said.

"Players have to face each challenge alone. Any other part of the game gets suspended when one's coming," I said.

"You're wrong as usual. You're not alone and neither am I," he said as he braced himself.

We didn't have long to wait. The Dragon Capture Jar appeared in front of us with a cadre of Marauding Captains to guard it. I didn't want to burn a Trap Card trying to get rid of the Dragon Capture Jar. Besides, I had a score to settle with those Marauding Captains. They'd separated me from Mokuba. I called in a flail and charged into the pile. The medieval weapon was heavy enough that if I could reach the Dragon Capture Jar, it would shatter like any other vase. I wanted my Blue Eyes White Dragon to be the one taking the Marauding Captains out.

I swung the flail's chain. The spiked ball at the end caught one of the Marauding Captains on the side of the head. He dragged down his comrade as he fell. The rest moved in more cautiously. When you're facing a distance weapon though, caution doesn't pay. There's no way to close in and stay out of reach at the same time.

They used the pair in front as cannon fodder. Once again the spiked metal ball crashed into them, destroying them on contact, but it gave the rest time for the two in back to reach me. The weapon I'd chosen wasn't meant for close in fighting, but I didn't want to retreat and switch it out, not with the Dragon Capture Jar so close. I shortened the flail's chain. It was still heavy enough to do some damage, but it was unwieldy and they got in a couple of licks of their own. Neither strike was immediately life threatening and adrenaline would carry me forward for a while.

I heard hoof-beats behind me and risked a glance back, expecting more enemies.

It was Yami.

He was thundering towards me on Nightmare Horse. The stallion's mummy-like wrappings were streaming behind him with the force of his ride. The horse's body was pure energy. Yami sat atop him like he was born to ride a nightmare. His left hand gripped the frayed remains of the reins, his right carried a lance. I threw back my head and laughed, despite the pain starting to seep in from the wound across my chest.

Yami was magnificent.

He leaned forward across the neck of his mount; his face was lit with the white-blue lightning sparking off the Nightmare Horse's back. Yami thrust the lance home, its point pushing forwards, until it finally protruded from the chest of the Marauding Captain closest to me. Yami pulled the lance back, thrust forward again and took out another one.

I staggered forward, swinging my flail to its full length. It shattered the Dragon Capture Jar. My Blue Eyes White Dragon appeared before the shards hit the ground, wheeled in the sky and rained white fire down on the remaining enemies. They turned to ash. I could have sworn she (and why did I keep thinking of my dragon as a she?) tipped her head to me before flying off.

Yami dismounted, patted his monstrous horse on the nose, and returned him to his inventory. He was shining with remembered light from the horse – or from the battle.

He walked up to me. His face changed; it was just as intense, but it was different. It was hard to read, or maybe it was just getting hard to think. I wanted him.

"Kaiba!"

He didn't say my name, he demanded it.

I didn't answer. Suddenly breathing was taking up an inordinate amount of my attention.

"Seto!" he said, just as insistently, after a pause. He probably knew my given name on his lips had commanded my attention each time he'd done it. It was getting hard to concentrate on anything but those lips; everything else was starting to blur around the edges. I took a step forward, touching him was the only goal left in my head.

"Seto!" he repeated as he reached me. "You're bleeding!"

I used my remaining energy to roll my eyes. It was just like Yami to point out something I already knew.

* * *

 _**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter and helping me sort out multiple flail/morning star/mace with chain names.** _

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** There's a part in Noa's Arc where Yugi observes that it's a shame Noa and Seto are enemies, since they have more in common then they'll admit, mainly that both have been hurt by being Gozaburo's sons. It's one of my favorite observations (okay, I have a host of favorites) because it's so true and neither of them can see it.

In this story Noa's more obviously wondering about family and specifically fathers, but for the first time in years, Kaiba is moving, at least a little, towards trying to sort out his emotions instead of burying them, and as that happens I think he'd also be seeing the past in a different way – or rather finally looking at it rather than stubbornly pretending it doesn't exist. And I think the realization that he does care what at least one other person (besides Mokuba) thinks would be a little disconcerting.

Sorry for the delay in posting. I hope you enjoyed the chapter.

 **Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my Live Journal account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated.

 _As always, comments would be adored…_


	29. Advent of Union

**CHAPTER 29: ADVENT OF UNION**

 _As anyone on any Starship Enterprise – original, reboot or next generation – knows, quests are about boldly going where no one has gone before. It's so easy to picture each adventure moving out from its starting point in as straight a line as possible – as if geometry and not discovery was the goal. But as Dorothy and her mismatched crew found out, true change isn't measured in outward miles marched but in the thoughts, feelings and people you let in along the way._

 **YAMI'S NARRATIVE**

Kaiba was lucky to be alive.

We'd finally faced another challenge. It had almost been a relief. For someone as consumed by dueling as Kaiba was in the world outside, he'd shown a startling propensity for physically throwing himself into each fight. He'd immediately taken out four Marauding Captains – and just as quickly gotten into trouble with the rest of their cohort, before we'd managed to destroy the Dragon Capture Jar. His dragon had made short work of the remaining enemies. Kaiba hadn't gotten away clean of course, but the only real damage seemed to be a slice across his chest and another down his right arm.

Then he stumbled over to me. Kaiba was naturally pale but now he looked ashen. Up close I could see just how ugly those gashes were, how much blood he'd lost already. I called his name but he didn't answer, unless his determination to make his way to me was answer enough. Kaiba reached out. One hand landed on my shoulder, the other tangled awkwardly in my hair. It would have been an embrace except he couldn't stand unaided.

His clothes were in shreds. I worked his hand free as gently as I could, stripped off the remains of his jacket and shirt, called in a salve, and slathered it on his chest as fast as possible. I felt the tension drain from my shoulders as his skin knitted itself back together under my hands. Kaiba had boasted that the healing potion would cure anything short of death. He seemed determined to prove he was right.

"You didn't stock an inexhaustible supply of this stuff. Next time, how about calling in a duel monster _before_ you get sliced to pieces?" I asked, moving on to the slash across his bicep.

He had recovered enough to grin and say, "Hey, it worked, didn't it? And who are you to talk, anyway? You were right in there with me."

I didn't point out that I'd been on a horse or that he was lucky not to have lost an arm. Kaiba's smirk was as annoying as ever, but he was also barely able to stand. I looked down. My Puzzle was still smeared with his blood.

"I told you it was a two person game," I said, as I finished up on his arm and moved on to the remaining nicks in his side and back. As always, my attention was drawn to the marks that would never fade, even in this virtual world.

"These must have hurt," I said, touching one of the older scars.

He shrugged. "Does it matter? I wasn't going to do anything differently."

"Of course it does!" I protested.

He shrugged again. "Strip away the pretty words and isn't that what life comes down to in the end: the choices you make and the prices you pay?"

"And the people who come into your life – the people you want there," I reminded him. "Without them, any life is incomplete."

"You looked magnificent," he said, his voice almost too low to be heard.

I took a step back. He turned to face me. Before I could respond, the Wicked Worm Beast appeared behind him. I screamed a warning, but for once the monster caught Kaiba off guard. We'd been treating him as a joke. Now he got his tentacles around Kaiba's torso and squeezed suffocatingly tight. The sharp crack was unmistakable: the monster had snapped at least one of Kaiba's ribs. I thought the Wicked Worm Beast had trapped Kaiba's arms in front of him, but when a kodachi appeared in each of Kaiba's hands, I realized that it had been a strategic move. With twin strikes, he thrust upwards and outwards, slicing he tentacles that bound him. Kaiba managed to dispatch the Wicked Worm Beast, but he was spitting up blood before he finished.

He lay down while I treated this new injury, closing his eyes as I worked. I was relieved as the faint lines of pain erased themselves from his face. I kissed Kaiba lightly. His lips barely moved in response. He was asleep before I finished applying the salve.

"Your computer glitch almost managed to kill you," I whispered as I sat down next to him. I couldn't resist the urge to stroke his hair. I remembered watching Kaiba sleep in his bedroom in Domino after we'd finished the penalty game with his adoptive father. It seemed like a long time ago. Once again though, Kaiba didn't look like a warrior who'd just faced down his enemies and won; he looked like a child who'd been up for far too long and had finally, mercifully fallen asleep. I couldn't repress a chuckle at how annoyed Kaiba would be if he could read my thoughts.

But I wasn't surprised to look into the night and find a phantom waiting.

He was older this time, maybe 14 or 15, just slightly younger than when we'd first met. He was in a white school uniform. I wondered about that. I knew that he hadn't been in school back then. He saw my gaze.

"Appearances are important," he said with a grin. "Especially when they're deceptive."

I stood up to face him. We were almost the same height. Next to me, Kaiba frowned slightly and stirred in his sleep, as if he missed my hand.

His younger self caught the movement. "What a weakling," he sneered.

"You have no right to say that!" I hissed.

"I'm not talking about him letting you pet him like he's some stray dog from the gutter who followed you home. There's power gathering in this world – and he's trying to shut it down. What an asshole!"

"He's trying to do the honorable thing," I contradicted.

"Yeah, like I said, he's weak."

I stared at the 14 year-old Seto Kaiba, thought of the younger versions I'd met before. Kaiba had been orphaned when he was eight. In many ways, he'd traveled farther in nine years than I had in 3,000. I looked at the hateful child in front of me and fully realized for the first time why Kaiba was so desperate to bury his past – and just who he'd been trying to kill.

"You have no idea how strong Seto Kaiba is," I told him.

The boy grinned maliciously, looking like the Witty Phantom. "Don't be a hypocrite. You wanted to kill him too, remember?"

"No."

"Oh, really?" He held up the Trap card, "Total Recall" with his usual flourish. For an instant we both saw a shadowy black and white image of myself in his soul room. As if I was watching a silent movie, I saw myself mouth the words, "Mind Crush!"

"Don't insult my intelligence by lying. You hate me. We both know it." His voice was slightly higher-pitched than Kaiba's was now, but the bored, dismissive tone was the same.

"I don't. I stood in your soul room, looked at you at your worst, and still saw something worth saving," I told him. _"Had I seen something worth loving as well?"_ I wondered to myself, glad my visitor couldn't read minds.

"You mean you saw a broken toy you could fix to be what you wanted? I'd rather be dead than be a puppet waiting for your string," he sneered.

I sighed.

"Is it so impossible to believe I could like you for yourself?" I asked. "Mokuba does."

"That's because he's a kid. _He_ says that when Mokuba gets older he'll turn on me like everyone else."

"Why are you believing your adoptive father? He only wants to hurt you."

"I know that," he said impatiently. "But what if it's true? Not that it matters. I can take care of myself."

"Mokuba would never hurt you, Seto. Somewhere, somehow, you have to hold on to that."

"It's Seto- _sama_ to you. This is getting boring. Why are you acting like you give a shit? Do you really think I'd fall for something that lame? You're not nearly as good at playing people as _he_ is, and I can run rings around that bastard." He held up Total Recall again. "You need to see this a few more times?"

I sighed again. This terrible child was a part of Kaiba. He had all of Kaiba's stubbornness. Or was he – were they both – that afraid of getting hurt? I'd cast out the darkness in Kaiba's heart. The bitterness and distrust were proving a more intractable foe.

"I don't hate you," I insisted, wondering which Seto Kaiba I was trying to reach. "I never did, even when I was screaming the words. You're trying to stop your adoptive father from using your genius to kill people; you're trying to protect your brother."

For a moment his face went blank… no, more than blank. For a moment he look lost, like he couldn't remember where he was or why he was there.

"Sometimes," I said, thinking of myself facing Kaiba in our penalty games or on Pegasus' tower at Duelist Kingdom, "sometimes we can hide a secret so deeply we forget it ourselves, until we can come face to face with it and still not see."

He looked troubled and surprisingly vulnerable. I could see, briefly, the child I'd met in Kaiba's soul room. Seto mumbled his brother's name. He looked down for a minute; I couldn't see his eyes. When he faced me again they were as unrevealing as if his bangs still covered them.

"Why do you want the Blue Eyes White Dragon so badly?" I asked abruptly.

"Are you stupid? They're the most powerful cards in the game," he snapped.

"Is that all they are?" I asked, holding his gaze, knowing Kaiba well enough to know he'd take the challenge of meeting my stare.

"Of course," he said, a little too desperately; he was a shade too eager to convince me. "This is about winning. It's all I care about."

"Is it? I would have believed that once, but not any longer."

"Who cares what you think?"

"You do. Why else would you be arguing? Do you even believe the things you're saying?" I asked.

"Stop lying to me! I know how you feel!" he screamed.

He held up Total Recall again. The images were different this time, but I recognized each one as it flashed by. They were still silent, but I didn't need sound to hear all the times I'd told Kaiba that I hated him, that I'd never forgive him, that he'd disappointed me.

Kaiba had never given a sign that anything I'd ever called him had bothered him – much less that he'd hugged it so tightly it had followed him into this game. But now I wondered how many of the things that this terrible child was screaming at me were things that Kaiba had thought and never voiced. I suddenly remembered our earlier conversation with Noa, suddenly pictured the way Kaiba's lips tightened every time I harped on all the flaws in his game. Had he seen it as just another attack, just another proof of my disdain?

"Yes, I've been furious at you. Yes, we've fought each other, not as honorable rivals but as bitter enemies, each of us willing to do whatever it took to win – and you gave as little mercy as you expected. All of that doesn't mean I don't care, that I can watch you travel down this path without grieving," I said.

"There is no other road," he said uncompromisingly.

"Yes there is – the road to your future. You'll find it one day, Seto. I promise."

"Like I'm supposed to believe that?"

But with each scoffing remark he sounded a little more desperate; with each sneer he sounded more like the Kaiba I knew – the one who wanted me to prove him wrong, the one who wanted me to prove he could trust to his hopes, not his fears.

"Yes," I said, trying to hold his gaze again.

He laughed in my face and walked away.

How many times had I let Kaiba walk away over the years? This time, I went after him.

The little brat turned and laughed again. "Now you're a puppet on _my_ string," he said proudly.

Once before in this virtual world I'd chased after a younger version of Seto Kaiba. Once again I followed him right onto Pegasus' tower. This time I was ready. My hands were shaking as I picked my cards carefully.

"Are you sure you don't want to kill me? Then why do you keep coming back here?" he asked as he disappeared.

"Yami!" Kaiba called out as he ran up to me. I played "Negate Attack." For an instant, a whirlwind of light flashed across the tower floor, preventing it from collapsing… sealing it and holding it together. I was grateful to my vicious little phantom. I knew what to do, what I wanted. I'd been given an opportunity much more common in a video game than in life: a chance to replay this moment.

* * *

 **KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

I woke up. I thought I'd heard Yami call my name, calling me "Seto" again. Then again, I'd also thought he was sitting next to me stroking my hair. It must have been a dream. This was real life and Yami was walking away from me. A fog had closed in; he was almost out of sight. I frowned. He wasn't just wandering off. His strides were purposeful… like he was pursuing something. I jumped up and went after him.

For a moment I thought I saw someone in the distance. Then whoever Yami had been chasing disappeared and we were on the top of Pegasus' tower all over again. This was getting as old as the Wicked Worm Beast. Just like when we'd both been on Pegasus' tower for real, I could feel the wind ripping at my coat – except I was shirtless this time. My heels still teetered at the edge of the stone parapet. I took a deep breath and stepped forward, off the edge and onto the relative safety of the stone floor. I waited for it to crumble beneath us again, waited for Yami to call in the Winged Guardian of the Fortress one more time. I sighed, bored.

Nothing happened. I looked down, vaguely surprised that the floor was still solid, then at Yami. He'd played "Negate Attack." I frowned. I wanted to write off his move as a stupid waste of time. How were we supposed to get on with things and get this over with when Yami had just played a card that would hold everything in place? Then I took a second look at Yami and reassessed things. Yami had his game face on… or at least he looked as intense as when he dueled. And I'd learned – sometimes to my cost – that Yami's most incomprehensible moves usually worked out. I put my hands in my pockets, settled on a slightly bored but reasonably attentive look and waited. Yami just stood there staring at me like he'd seen a ghost.

"I assume there's a reason for keeping the tower from falling?" I asked.

"Yes." He looked around. "It all comes back to here, doesn't it?"

I shrugged. "I thought it went further back than that."

Back to the moment when he'd stepped into my soul room, but I didn't bother going into details. I didn't need to.

He nodded. "But this is the place where I would have let you die… when I would have let you go to your death believing that was the penalty for losing, believing your life meant nothing except as a sacrifice… and I didn't even know back then that I'd mourn your loss."

"It was a duel," I pointed out.

"And this is a game. But it's never that simple, is it?"

I stared at him. Yami had stopped making sense, as if he was the one that'd just lost a lot of blood, not me. Had he just said that he'd miss me if I was dead?

"I would have let you die that day on Pegasus' tower, because I was too stubborn to see," Yami said. "But this game is about second chances, and this one is mine. You've created something breath-taking. This game is like you – magnificent, intensely personal and deeply flawed. If I could wrap myself around each line of coding, insinuate myself in and out of each indecipherable command I would."

Yami always loved the sound of his own voice. I had no idea what he was going on about.

Except it was everything I wanted to hear. Everything that made me squirm. I didn't know anymore if I was weak for wanting him to understand… for wanting him to want me anyway. And he did. I felt a warmth grow somewhere deep inside, akin to but different from the surface heat of standing so close to him… the same way the memory of his penetrating so deeply into my soul had become reconfigured as a physical touch. I drew in a deep breath, stalling for time. I had absolutely no idea what to say in response.

Luckily, talking wasn't required.

Yami reached up; one hand cupped my cheek, the other settled at the base of my skull, easing my head downward for his kiss. I wondered what would happen when the fire in his touch met the warmth radiating outward from the core of my being.

It didn't take long to find out. Yami was just as eager, just as enthusiastic as me. I could lose myself in the feel of our lips pressing against each other, opening for each other. But the height difference was too large to make this comfortable for long. I picked him up. Yami's legs were wrapped around my waist; his head was, for once, slightly above mine. It was an odd sensation, having to look up.

It was like some new game whose rules had yet to be determined. How many times had I faced Yami in a duel – or even just thought about him in the privacy of my room – and said how he excited me? And here he was, kissing me, thrusting his tongue into my mouth like a promise of more to come, stroking my chest… here he was doing things to me I'd avoided even dreaming of.

I'd been braced against the wall. Somehow we'd managed to slide to the floor. The stones were against my back. They were hard, but smooth, warmed by the sun. If they'd been set afire though, they couldn't match the heat of Yami's touch, the answering flame building inside me.

Yami's fingers trailed down my torso. It was like all the times he patched me up, except this time there was nothing to fix. Each muscle jumped as he reached it, unsure whether to shy away or melt into his touch. I'd never shied away from anything. And I didn't want to. For the first time his hand slipped under the waistband, and suddenly, close as we were, it wasn't nearly enough.

This felt amazing.

Yami was making me feel. He was making me ache with hunger.

I was letting someone touch me like they had a right to. I was letting this happen. I wanted it to. This was Yami. I wanted him to explore every inch of my skin, then go deeper. I moaned, excited by the sound of my own need as it left my lips.

"Kaiba," whispered Yami.

But soft as it was, that one whispered word reminded me: I was Kaiba.

I wasn't supposed to be enjoying this; I wasn't supposed to want. I wasn't supposed to need anything, even more of this, intoxicating as it was. And I especially wasn't supposed to be trying to glue myself to the man I'd tried to kill, the man who'd once penetrated so deeply into my soul that anything else that happened tonight would merely be icing on the cake.

I knew that. But here I was rolling on the ground with Yami anyway, like we were a couple of stray dogs fighting. Worse, I was the one lying on my back with my throat bared, with Yami's teeth nipping at the exposed skin. I knew what Gozaburo would say, he'd said it already, he'd taunted me that I was Yami's bitch. But these weren't just Gozaburo's rules I was breaking, they'd been mine as well.

I wrenched Yami up, but somehow, instead of throwing him off I ended up holding him a little apart – and even that distance felt too far. I expected his expression to be predatory… gloating… just like when he won one of our duels. Instead I watched as the dazed, almost-drunk look left his face, as it was replaced by a kind of confused concern.

"Seto?" he asked. He was still straddling me, but he was sitting up now.

But the use of my given name, the name no one ever used unless they were adding a "sama" at the end of it reminded me: I was more than the family I'd bulldozed my way into; I'd come into this game to find a way to be Kaiba without the anger and bitterness.

I stared at Yami. I was the one lying on my back, but he was the one deferring to me. He was going to accept my rejecting him again, my pulling him closer then pushing him away – without even having Mokuba as an excuse. Yami was letting me decide the very thing he'd just been insisting on… it was my call whether I wanted this to be a solitary or a two player game, whether I could stand having a partner in arms.

Yami started to move away. I tightened my grip, holding him where he was. It was on odd time to think of Yugi's grandfather, but I remembered him telling me I could have made this game into whatever I wanted.

Maybe it was appropriate we were on Pegasus' tower. I felt like once again I was about to fall. Would I feel the freedom of flight if I threw myself off its side?

I jerked Yami back down to me, slammed him against my chest. I yanked his head to mine so we could get back to kissing, so I could forget everything but the feel of his tongue in my mouth, the feel of his body rubbing against mine. I was glad he hadn't asked if I was ready or any of the other trite questions I had no idea how to answer. I craved Yami. I wanted to take this plunge with him. And everything else… Gozaburo's rules, my own, could just fuck off.

His tongue was molten, his touch pure fire, as if I was encased in the neutron blast of my own dragon. Abrupt as it was, I should have expected Yami to stop suddenly, to pull his head back and look at me. Only Yami could imagine this was a good time to talk.

"Kaiba… Seto…" he began, unsure which name this new situation called for.

I stared at him. He'd never looked like this before, not even in the midst of a duel, not even when we'd been fighting for our lives. His hair was hanging around his face, weighted down by the sweat that made his face and chest glisten. His breath was coming in harsh gasps. I reached up to play with his nipple and heard his breathing hitch just a little. I'd never seen Yami look anything but laser-sharp before. Now he looked flustered, oddly unfocused.

I was making him feel stuff too.

"This is my life. Nobody else's," I insisted, although somewhere, dimly, it occurred to me that Yami wasn't arguing the point. "Do you think I want you to baby me?"

Yami grinned at that. "Never," he said.

"Then, shut up and keep going," I told him, this time pushing his head back to mine and holding it firmly in place.

My grip relaxed as he thrust his tongue into my mouth again, as his hands resumed their path down my torso, as every muscle twitched in response as though lightning was sparking off his fingers. My hands left his head, now that I no longer needed to hold him in place, and moved down his back.

He shivered and raised his head from mine. I groaned, hoping he hadn't found anything else to ask, but for once Yami was done questioning. He zeroed in on my neck, biting and sucking, needing to add taste to his inventory of my body, before moving back to my mouth as if that was where his belonged. This was what I wanted: no talk, no second guesses, nothing but our mouths fused together, our hands moving in concert, stripping the rest of our clothes, until the Puzzle that connected us was the only thing lying between us.

Neither of us knew what we were doing. It didn't matter. The fucking newness of it was part of the kick. I explored each just-revealed inch of skin, my hands moving randomly across his body; for once I didn't have a strategy. He moaned and ground against me with each sweep of my hands; his own eagerly caressing me just as easily in turn.

I wasn't used to anyone touching me, much less in places I rarely touched myself unless desperate (or could barely reach), touching me in ways I'd never dreamed I wanted. Everything – the flicker of his tongue dipping into my navel, the way he traced the line of my legs, the crease behind my knees – reminded me: this was no longer a solitary game. I had a partner in arms. Even in fantasy, I'd never imagined responding so thoroughly to someone that I might as well have handed my body over to their keeping. But this wasn't just anyone. This was Yami.

Once I'd stood on Pegasus' tower ready to jump. Now I was finally falling. Power was everything I craved. Control was the one thing I'd forbidden myself to surrender. Yami wrapped both in one seductive package. Was it any wonder I succumbed, the rules of a lifetime crashing around me with the force of my plunge?

Yami's body was just as slender and as strong as I'd imagined; it was an incongruous shell for so much power. The hands I'd seen so often gripping his cards were now grabbing my hips, holding me in place. His gaze had regained its intensity, seemed to bore into me as deeply as ever – but now the anger, even the arrogance, was drowned in raw need.

I could fall into that stare, the same way I was falling into his touch… falling into this world where I was weightless and yet achingly aware of every muscle on my 6 foot 1 inch frame. I let the unexpected sensations wash over me, let them carry me to this strange, alien exaltation. And with each touch, each thrust of our bodies against each other, each shared movement, I lost all track of where I began and Yami ended, until I no longer cared… no longer wanted to parse it out… no longer wanted to do anything but feel and crave and be satisfied. Everything fell away. Everything but Yami's body and mine. Everything but this strange place where I was frenzied and at peace all at the same time…

Then we were laying side by side, separate once more… and I still had no idea what to say.

I felt Yami's arms steal around me. He rested his head against my shoulder.

"I'm here, Kaiba," he said, as if he knew I'd expected him to get up and walk away.

I grunted. I started to get up myself, but he was holding me too tightly.

"It's okay, Kaiba," he said. "Isn't adapting the first rule of survival?"

I froze. Had this all been one more challenge, just one more aspect of the game? Had I been well and truly played?

"Unhide codes!" I yelled, my voice hoarse. I was unsure whether to be relieved or scared when nothing happened.

"What we shared wasn't a game, Kaiba," Yami said.

"It's always better to know," I answered.

"Indeed it is. But I'd never do that to you… and I think you know that. What will you do when you no longer have a game to confirm whether it's safe to trust?" he asked, his voice low in my ear.

"I shouldn't have doubted you," I said, stunned to realize how true my words were. "I shouldn't have forgotten: this might not have been a game, but you've always played fair with me."

"If you forget again, I'll be right here to remind you," Yami said softly.

I nodded, suddenly tired. I struggled to keep my eyes open.

"It's okay, Kaiba. Go back to sleep," Yami said.

"It's my turn to keep watch. Do you think I'm not up to it?" I snarled.

I don't know why it came out so angry when I wasn't mad or looking for a fight, but Yami said, "You were only asleep for about an hour before. I told you I'd never baby you, that we'll share whatever comes next. I promise. And at least you don't have to worry about a challenge starting – didn't you fix the coding so that one couldn't begin while we were lying down?"

"This situation was hardly what I had in mind," I pointed out.

"You have to admit it came in handy though," he answered.

The last thing I remembered before falling asleep was the feel of Yami chuckling against my shoulder. It had been a night of firsts: I'd never had anyone lean into my body and laugh before.

* * *

 _**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter.** _

_**Thanks to Meshi and Negative Angel for typo catching.**_ I should learn not to change things after sending it to Bnomiko for betaing. All mistakes are mine.

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I've never written a "first time" scene from Kaiba's point of view, and as I struggled with this one, I realized why (lol). Strange as it seems since this is Chapter 29, as I started writing I realized Kaiba was nowhere near as ready for this as either he or I had thought. If you look at the expression "physical intimacy" I think it's the word "intimacy" that would bother him most of all, because the idea of letting down his guard to this extent and needing someone goes so far against everything he believes about himself and what he believes about strength and weakness. For me it was a matter of Kaiba having a chance at something he wants if he could let himself go enough to admit it and to (somewhat literally) let Yami get this close. I don't think he even has the safety net of pretending to himself that he doesn't care or that it's just physical because he's in this game that is constantly tearing away at that particular self-delusion.

 **Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my Live Journal account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated.

 _As always, comments would be adored…_


	30. Dragon's Roar

**CHAPTER 30: DRAGON'S ROAR**

 _It's comforting to picture our heroes – and maybe ourselves as well – marching steadily forwards, and (of course) never faltering along the way. But sometimes stories know better. When Dorothy – and even Toto – encounter a field of poppies they promptly fall asleep. D'Artagnan sets his feet on the path towards becoming a musketeer and just as quickly detours, running (literally) into three life or death duels. And even Ash Ketchum (up to the point when I stopped watching Pokémon) never quite managed to catch them all. Closer to home, if you include the anime, everyone – even the title characters – loses at least one duel._

 _Maybe, instead of being an ending point, failure is part of the test._

 **YAMI'S NARRATIVE**

I was lying on top of Kaiba. Sex relaxed Kaiba enough that he fell asleep. It was an interesting discovery. I could hear his heartbeat under my ear, like a metronome. It would have been easy to drift off myself. I was sure it was safe; Kaiba had spent so much time making sure nothing could get near us in our sleep. But I remembered the story Mokuba had told me and I'd seen for myself how exhausted the little phantom who'd visited me last night had been. Kaiba felt vulnerable in sleep. He trusted me; it was why he was letting himself rest now. And that kept me awake and on guard.

We were still on the stone floor of Pegasus' tower. I wondered how Kaiba could sleep on such an unyielding bed. Then the memory of all we had done on that same surface came flooding back. Sleeping seemed different somehow. As soon as the thought came to life in my mind, the stone seemed to melt into the twilight. Without falling, we were back on the forest floor, cushioned by the moss that had replaced the granite floors of the tower. I hoped it was an omen.

Our bedrolls were nearby. I tried to get up as gently as I could to get them. Kaiba's arm had been thrown loosely across my back. As soon as I moved, he tightened his grip. I loosened his hold and grabbed the blanket as quickly as I could; he was stirring restlessly by the time I got back.

"I'm here Kaiba, just like I promised," I said as I sat down next to him. We all knew of Kaiba's promises – to be Mokuba's father, to rebuild Kaiba Corporation – but now I wondered: had anyone ever made a promise _to_ Kaiba before… beyond my promise never to forgive him?

I threw a blanket over us. I didn't want to cover Kaiba's body; it was beautiful in its nakedness. But the air was getting cooler, and Kaiba was going to feel exposed enough when he finally woke up. Kaiba moved his head into my lap; both of his arms came up to clutch me to him. It was indescribable… being held like this… being solid enough to be held… being solid enough to have possessed not only my own body, but Kaiba's.

I'd never imagined Kaiba could be as unguarded as he'd been last night; that he would give a piece of himself to me so freely – regardless what it cost him to come to that point. I'd never expected to see confusion and longing reflected so clearly in his eyes as they fought for dominance. I'd tried to hold on to the ragged edges of patience and give him the time he needed, however long it took, while everything in me screamed against any delay. But as usual, Kaiba had taken matters into his own hands, giving me not just a shared night but something at once more intangible and precious… something of himself.

I liked watching Kaiba sleep. Except for the times he twitched his way through a nightmare, he looked younger asleep – or rather, he looked his age. The tension that seemed as much a part of him as his blue eyes was gone, leaving me to wonder what he might have been like if he'd never met Gozaburo. Or had the pattern been set even earlier? I thought of the little imps I'd met, each more abrasive than the last and smiled. There was nothing childlike about my feelings for Kaiba, but I was glad I'd met them. They'd led the way to the man I'd come to care for so deeply.

Kaiba stirred again and tightened his grip even further. I wondered if my hips would have finger shaped bruises in the morning. I stroked his hair and gently cupped one shoulder. I leaned over to whisper, "It's okay, Kaiba. I'm still here." The lines in his face eased and his grasp relaxed a little, although he didn't let go. I hoped I was an anchor in whatever dreams he was wandering through.

"You're going to be so difficult to deal with when you wake up," I whispered with a smile.

I stroked his shoulder, then traced the line of his collarbone. My finger hit the thick chain that held my Puzzle. Being part of Kaiba last night… feeling the weight of his grip this morning… had made me feel so solid. It was hard to believe if Kaiba took the Puzzle off, I'd vanish as if I'd never existed in this time at all.

I glared at the Puzzle. I'd never felt this sense of irritation before, as if the Puzzle was chafing against not just my skin but my very being. I had a sudden, mad temptation to rip it off Kaiba's neck, to prove I was as real as I'd been last night.

Had Kaiba's determination to challenge fate, to seize his future in his own hands, to live it on his own terms, rubbed off on me? But then, Kaiba had always seemed to live outside my expectations, to forge his own rules. It had attracted me from the first, even before I'd realized what I was feeling was desire.

Everyone but Kaiba had always had a clearly defined place. I loved Yugi. His friends were part of that love, separate and distinct notes that formed a symphony. Kaiba was a like a discord crashing through the harmony. I owed my existence and almost everything I knew of living to Yugi. Kaiba had taught me the rest.

Not all in one night, amazing as it had been. At that first penalty game I'd called our duel monsters to shadowy life to scare Kaiba, only to watch, transfixed, as he laughed with childish glee. That sense of connection, twisted as it was, had grown stronger through each of our encounters. I'd hated him at Death-T, had stormed his soul room to find the brave child he'd been as well as the monster I'd expected. I'd respected how far he'd come at Duelists Kingdom even as I'd started the attack that would have led to his death. I'd faced him at Alcatraz as an equal, wanting desperately to find a place where rivalry and friendship were one. Then we'd come here… to an imaginary world where I felt truly real for the first time.

Slowly, day by day, over the years we had seen each other, he had taught me to respect… to like… and finally to love… without knowing him… without feeling his thoughts mix with my own… accepting that we were separate until we finally came together.

Kaiba suddenly shook himself as his eyes popped open, instantly alert. He lifted his head from my lap and scrambled off me, face slightly averted; his bangs covered his eyes. He would have gotten up but I touched his arm. He turned to look at me, then glanced away as quickly.

It was hard seeing Kaiba wake up… seeing the surprise in his face when he saw that I was still there… seeing the undercurrent of shame as he realized how tightly he'd clutched me in his sleep, as he remembered last night. I could tell myself – I could tell him – that the codes he lived by were destroying him, that they fed his own worst impulses. He knew that as well as I. But they were still the codes he had lived by. And what was this entire game if not a testament to how hard it was for him to break free?

"Good morning," I said. I would have leaned in and kissed him, but he was still turned slightly away.

"It's not morning," Kaiba said, staring at the still-twilit sky. "Or did you let me over-sleep?"

I laughed. "I bet you've never over-slept in your life."

"It's your turn to get some rest," he said gruffly, as if I hadn't spoken.

"I've just woken up. Before that I was asleep for 3,000 years," I pointed out.

"Whatever. It's not like I _needed_ to sleep, either," he answered, as though I'd just insulted him. I wondered if he was aware of how childish he sounded.

I sighed. I'd expected Kaiba to wake up feeling vulnerable and uncertain; I'd expected him to lash out. Holding on to my patience was so much harder now that he was awake and talking.

"Are we back to trying to pick fights? I'd hoped we'd moved past that, Kaiba," I said.

"Yeah, I knew you'd be back to calling me 'Kaiba,' when I woke up," he answered, managing to sound angry, bitter and smug all at the same time – while ignoring everything I'd said beyond his name.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

He shrugged, still looking away. His refusal to even look at me – as if he could make me disappear by refusing to acknowledge my presence – was starting to grate.

"Look at me!" I ordered, knowing as I yelled the words that there was no way Kaiba would do anything that could be interpreted as obeying a command.

"Fuck you, Yami! Or do you figure…" He stopped suddenly and pressed his lips tightly together. His face was still slightly averted.

"What? Whatever is going on, spit it out, already," I said.

"Never mind. It doesn't matter," he said, staring at the ground.

"What doesn't? Are you really going to sit there and pretend that last night didn't happen because you're having second thoughts?"

"Forget it, Yami," he muttered.

"Forget what? Forget that I care about you? Forget what it felt like to have my own body, to have it be part of something so intimate? Forget that we shared something extraordinary? It's too late for forgetting. Last night was…"

"Shove it, Yami. Is this where you tell me how you still respect me, just like I really was your…"

"What?" I asked.

Kaiba shook his head.

I could accept anything from Kaiba but being dismissed as though I didn't exist. My eye fell to the Puzzle he wore around his neck, gleaming golden against the pale skin. If I doubted my own solidity, why shouldn't Kaiba?

"Or did you mean: forget that for a moment I felt like a real, breathing, living, human being instead of a disembodied ghost?" I demanded.

"Stop it!" he yelled, looking me right in the eye for the first time that morning. "You're real. You've always been real – and not just because last night you were solid enough to fuck me. It's who you are. But nothing I say or do will convince you otherwise, will it? Not unless you believe it yourself."

I stared at him. He was right. I'd known he'd be struggling with his own demons this morning. I could only be surprised the Wicked Worm Beast hadn't shown up yet. I'd meant to help however I could. And I'd ended up overwhelmed by my own doubts instead. I'd ended up putting my own fears off on him.

"I told you once. I can't tell the difference any more between attack and defense. And I don't want to do that to you," he said, his voice low and intense.

"So you thought not talking at all was the better option?" I asked incredulously, wondering why I found something so mind-numbingly stupid, oddly enchanting.

"I'm not going to lash out at you for my decisions. I refuse. That's cowardly and I've never been that," he said angrily, as though I'd been arguing the point.

Kaiba could have brushed me off. He hadn't. In his own rough, convoluted way, he'd been trying to offer comfort, trying to keep from hurting me in his own confusion. It suddenly struck me how alike we were. It was a similarity that could easily become unbearable. Kaiba felt responsible for me. But I didn't want to be another obligation in a life that had seen too many already. And yet, I couldn't deny I felt an obsessive, unfathomable responsibility towards him. It wasn't about our mutual survival. It was more basic. I felt a need to be part of his well being. I knew Kaiba would assume it meant I thought he was too weak to stand on his own. It didn't. It meant he was precious.

Did Kaiba feel the same? I wanted to smile, a fond doting grin that would have set his teeth on edge if they weren't gritting already. Then what he'd said earlier finally sunk in and I ended up yelling instead.

"You insufferable jerk! Do you really think I'd make love to someone I didn't consider my equal in every way? How dare you insult me!"

I expected Kaiba to object to the phrase "making love" – after all, "fucking" was the word he'd chosen – but his lips twitched slightly upwards. I shook my head, slightly sad that it had taken anger to make him smile.

"And we can't have you feeling insulted, can we?" Kaiba asked, his tone only slightly mocking.

"I'm glad we got that settled," I said. "So we can agree that I'm real – and that being cared for, feeling desire, doesn't make you any weaker?"

"Do either of us really believe what we're saying?" he asked.

How many times had Kaiba demanded: prove that trust won't hurt, prove that unity exists? I was grateful once again to my little visitors. How many times had they been treated like yesterday's trash, seen their hopes destroyed and their devotion used as a weapon against them… until they were afraid to believe that life could ever be any different? And Kaiba still carried the lessons they had learned.

I stared at his lips, eager now to close the distance.

"We'll keep going forward until we do. We'll do it together. I promise," I said as I reached his mouth, ending the conversation.

I pushed him gently. He pulled me to him as we fell back.

This was so new.

There had always been a screen between me and the rest of the world. Even in the midst of a duel there'd been an almost-imperceptible pause between drawing a card and feeling its smoothness against my fingers… no not my fingers, they'd been Yugi's fingers. That made a difference. I hadn't even known. I'd wanted Kaiba from the first moment of seeing him, but even my desire had been muted, and I'd taken my filtered existence for the real thing.

Having a body mattered.

I kissed Kaiba hungrily. My tongue pushed past the softness of his lips, felt the warmth and moisture of a mouth alike and yet different from my own. My fingers trailed down his still naked body, skimming over the smoothness of his skin, stopping at the slightly raised surface of each scar, transmitting an awareness of the tension in the lean muscles lying beneath. His own hands reached up to play with my nipples, to explore the planes of my chest, completing the circle.

I pulled my head back slightly to look at him, to see those brilliant blue eyes cloud over with desire, to watch as his lips parted. His low groan reached my ears… it was strange how something as intangible as a sound could make my own body tighten and spasm in response. I dropped my head to his neck, breathed in his faintly musky scent; he smelled of life. My tongue flickered out to taste him. I traced the line of his neck, the ridge of his collarbone, the center line of his torso, the swirl of one lean hip…

I would have thought these sensations: touch, sight, sound, scent, and taste were all there was. But as easy as it was to get lost in them, it was Kaiba who gave them meaning and form… Kaiba who was matching me in desire, in sensation, in raw aching need. It more than just the softness of his skin, the hardness of the muscles sheathed beneath, more even, than the sound of his moans. It was Kaiba trusting me, it was Kaiba wanting me and no one else. It was Kaiba who gave this moment completeness.

It was hard to feel alone in this body when it was joined to his.

* * *

 **ANZU'S NARRATIVE**

I wasn't sure how seeing Pegasus had become part of my routine. At first I'd gone to his office because he was working on my avatar – although now that I thought about it, he hadn't needed to see the boys – or even Yugi's grandfather – more than once. Then once the avatars were finished, he'd wanted to paint my portrait.

Predictably the boys had freaked out when they heard that. They went round and round like a pair of hamsters on a hamster wheel. They liked the idea of someone keeping tabs on Pegasus; they didn't want to spend more time with him than they had to; they didn't want me to be alone with him. That's when Fubeta offered to accompany me, which had started a whole new discussion, held in front of Fubeta of course, on whether they could trust him.

When I got tired of listening to them I pointed out that it was my decision not theirs. I left before they managed to shut their mouths. I missed Yugi. He never thought he knew better than me.

Fubeta had come on the first few visits, then as everyone had gotten used to my coming over, he'd stayed behind to help the guys out with the remaining VR pod. I was a bit relieved. It was hard talking to Pegasus – much less posing for him – with a silent audience.

And somewhere along the way, I'd started to look forward to visiting Pegasus. I hadn't forgotten the stuff he'd done to us… but he was so sad. And while he wasn't anything like Yugi, he was kind of easy to talk to. I missed Yugi; I missed being listened to the way Yugi did, like everything I said was the biggest news ever. Pegasus didn't do that, of course, but he never interrupted and I could tell him all kinds of sappy things without worrying that he'd think they were stupid. He was off in his own world most of the time anyway. But just when I'd decided nothing I said was making it through the haze, he'd throw in some absolutely on-target comment, and I'd realize that he'd been listening all along.

"I'm surprised I haven't had a visit from your would-be protectors," he said, making me wonder, again, if he could still read minds, since I'd just been relieved that Fubeta had stopped coming with me and that the boys had finally stopped complaining. "I wish one of my numerous attempts to bug the KC computer lab had worked, just so I could have been a fly on the wall for the conversation they must have had when you told them you were coming here."

"I've been lucky," I admitted. "They've had a project to distract them."

"Something so involving it's made them forget about rescuing their friends? Do tell!"

"No! They'd never do that! They're trying to help Yugi," I said, forgetting for a moment that I was still mad at the boys. Besides it was one thing to insult them myself, another to hear Pegasus making fun of them. "There's a fourth VR pod in the lab, but it was never finished. Isono thinks he can get it to work. The boys have been helping him. Once it's up and running one of us will be able to go there and help Yugi and the rest come home."

"So still waters do run deep. I've always said that it's the quiet ones you have to watch out for. Do you really think they've figured out a way to crash Kaiba's private party?"

I nodded. "Isono's convinced they can do it."

Pegasus giggled. "Delightful news. I've always believed that wild cards are always the most fun to play."

I had no idea what he was talking about. But Pegasus could have out-stared a cat. He gave me his blandest look. I turned away.

As usual, the first thing I noticed in Pegasus' office was the portrait of Cynthia. He'd painted dozens of them and he kept changing the pictures. The one on his wall today was my favorite. She was lying in a field; wildflowers were in her blonde hair. Her eyes were half open like she'd just woken up. She still had a slight smile on her face as if her dream had been a pleasant one. I wondered if he liked seeing her in different moods, wearing different clothes. I wasn't sure it was such a good idea, not if it helped him go on pretending that she was out there, somewhere… waiting for him, if only he could find her.

"If you're done studying the décor, perhaps we could get some work done on your own portrait," Pegasus asked with mock politeness. He got up from his desk and went to the studio that connected with his office. It had hardwood floors like the dance studio where I took classes. Only these were made of a darker wood and were polished so much that anyone who actually tried to dance on them would probably have snapped an ankle. Luckily I was just posing.

I figured he'd have wanted to paint me in a tutu or something equally over the top. He hadn't. I was in regular workout gear: a leotard, leggings, tights, legwarmers and ballet flats – the outfit of the working dancer I wanted to be. I was sitting on the floor stretching. My left foot was tucked against my outstretched right leg. My torso and head were leaning over it; my face was tilted slightly towards Pegasus. My left arm formed an arc over my head; my right lightly grasped my heel. Light filtered in from the window. It caught my cheekbones and the muscles of my arms and legs, then vanished into the matte black of my clothes.

Pegasus kept pretending that he wouldn't let me see my portrait until it was done, but he let me sneak looks anyway. The painting was a study in browns, blacks, and beiges, in lights and shadows. I was the only thing alive in the room… me and the ghostly reflection that stared back from the mirror-dark hardwood floor.

It was ridiculously idealized… but it wasn't. I'd never looked that good, that graceful. But somehow he'd caught the years of practice it took to learn to stretch that far that easily.

"Do you like it?" he asked. For once he was completely serious.

"Of course." I paused and bit my lip. "I'm not that pretty."

"My dear girl, never argue with the artist. And you're not pretty. You're vibrantly alive… and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Although if you wanted something less exalted, although no less true – I can provide that as well."

He gestured towards a huge sketchpad. The opening pages were blank. I flipped past them. The first drawing I found was a cartoon sketch of myself in that awful outfit Kaiba had designed. I had my arms crossed over my chest and was tapping my foot. Steam was coming out of my ears. Above my head was a cartoon bubble with an even more miniature me standing on tiptoe to hit Kaiba over the head with a mallet while Pegasus watched, clapping his hands like he was at a puppet show. I couldn't help laughing, although I suddenly wondered if Pegasus had made my outfit even worse than the original design. I didn't bother asking.

I continued flipping the pages. Pegasus took a step towards me and reached out, like he was going to grab it back. Then, just as abruptly he went back to staring at my portrait.

"Do you want me to stop?" I asked.

"No, my little peach girl. Since I showed you my sketchbook at all, I suppose I want you to go on."

The next few pages were of people I didn't know – business associates and staff, I guess, then abruptly I was back at Duelist Kingdom. I was playing Shining Friendship against Mai, all the determination and anger I'd felt that day in my face. Mai was on the facing page. If I'd ever doubted that Mai had wanted me to win, had wanted Yugi to have those star chips, the answer was here in black and white.

I looked past the portrait of Croquet, my attention caught by the charcoal sketch of Yami and Yugi. They were standing next to each other. Yami was slightly taller. But even without the height difference it was easy to see who was who.

Yugi smiled at me, his eyes wide. Yami's body was turned slightly to the side. His arms were crossed against his chest; his deck was in one hand. He stared out, his gaze challenging the viewer. As always the differences between them were glaring. I could easily believe that Yami had been a pharaoh. And Yugi was the shy kid I'd known from the sandbox.

But the more I stared at the picture the more similar they seemed. Yugi's legs were shorter, but he was standing on them just as solidly. He was smiling where Yami was glaring, but their eyes both showed the same determination.

"He cries a lot though," I mumbled to myself.

"Yes. But only for the people he's afraid he can't save." Pegasus tapped Yami's image. "I bet he does the same – but on the inside where no one can see."

I looked down again. Only a dancer would notice: Yami's stance was more commanding, but Yugi's was more centered… and Yami was the one leaning slightly against his partner's shoulder for balance.

I turned the page. The picture was starting to confuse me.

On the next page, Kaiba was sitting at his computer. Mokuba was hanging on one arm trying to attract his attention. Kaiba was ignoring him. At least that's what I would have said if I'd seen the picture when I'd first met them. Now I noticed the slight smile on Kaiba's face, the way he leaned slightly into his brother, the almost imperceptible tilt of his head.

Pegasus stared at the page with me. I glanced up at him.

"I needed his technology." Pegasus tapped the picture. "This was how I knew how to bait the trap."

He pointed to the facing page. Kaiba stared at us, surrounded by the walls of Pegasus' dungeon. His eyes were narrowed in determination as usual, but all the horror he refused to let come into his face was in them, somehow.

"Is this…" I started to ask, then stopped, unable to finish my question.

"When he saw his brother turn into a soulless toy? Yes."

"How could you?" I asked.

"Draw that moment? Or engineer the whole sorry mess in the first place?"

"Both."

"My poor child… such disappointment in your pretty blue eyes. Would it comfort you to know I've found a delightfully ironic way to make amends?" he asked, taking the sketchbook out of my hands and closing it.

"Now I'm really worried," I said, frowning. "You sound like you're plotting something."

"You wound me, little peach girl. Don't you know by now? I'm always plotting something."

I knew it would be hopeless, but I stared at him, trying to figure it out. His grin widened until I was irresistibly reminded of the Cheshire Cat, fading away until only the biggest smirk on Earth remained. And being with Pegasus reminded me enough of "Alice in Wonderland" already.

* * *

 _**Thanks to Bnomiko for editing this chapter and for patiently listening as I sorted out what I wanted to say.** _

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I can see Kaiba being terribly confused by everything going on – with his own emotions topping the list of things he doesn't get. I think he'd expect Yami not to be there when he woke up. He knows that Yami's not like that, but it's also Kaiba's baseline expectation of how the world works. And of course once Yami was there, he'd all his anger at feeling vulnerable and uncertain would come to the front. I can see him being determined not to take all that out on Yami, and then going about it in exactly the wrong way.

 **Anzu and Pegasus Note:** One thing that's really fun about fanfiction is that you get to give characters who don't interact much a chance to spend time with each other. Anzu and Pegasus are such opposites. Anzu has always seemed really grounded to me. (I mean, sure she has a crush on a jewelry-inhabiting, 3,000 year old spirit of an ex-pharaoh – but who in her shoes wouldn't?) And Pegasus is one of the most what planet is this guy residing on characters in a cast that's full of them. But the more time they spent together, the more I can see them getting to know and maybe even (platonically) like each other. Anzu is a pretty sympathetic girl. I can see her feeling sorry for Pegasus and being caught by the whole tragic love aspect of the whole thing. And let's face it, who wouldn't want their portrait painted by him? And Anzu would be about the age of Cynthia when they were going out. This is totally my own thing, but given how in out of space Pegasus is, I wonder if Cynthia was also down to earth –possibly to balance him out. So without this meaning Pegasus was attracted to Anzu or looking for a replacement, I can see Pegasus possibly finding it comforting to be around a young woman who in some ways is similar to his wife and who is also sympathetic to his loss.

 **Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my Live Journal account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated.

 _As always, comments would be adored…_


	31. Dinosaur's Rage

**CHAPTER 31: DINOSAUR'S RAGE**

 _Heroes pick up allies along the way, as if friends were items they could store in a video game inventory and pull out when needed. Even as solitary a hero (or anti-hero, since I have a hard time thinking of anyone so relentlessly focused on revenge regardless of the cost as a "hero") as the Count of Monte Cristo had managed to acquire (and believe me, "acquire" is the right word) a posse of former palace slaves and ex-convicts and pseudo-mistresses to uphold his reputation, guard his back and – most importantly – care if he lived or died._

 _Sometimes ally attainment is as dramatic as D'Artagnan nabbing three in an all for one, one for all swoop. Sometimes it's as casual as Luke Skywalker picking up Han Solo in the seediest bar in the seediest town in all of Tatooine._

 _But what happens when you already have the bestest buddy in the world? It took Ron Weasley and Harry Potter a troll attack and a wandful of monster mucus to decide that a third Best Friend Forever wasn't (always) a third wheel. And maybe it's lucky that Chewbacca wasn't the jealous type. Because as much as Han Solo needed his wingman, he needed a self-adopted little brother barging into his life just as much._

 **MOKUBA'S NARRATIVE**

The walls started to repair themselves. The cracks came together and disappeared, the ground-in dirt lightened and dissolved until I could see that the paint was blue. It had been impossible to tell before. The mouse noises faded away as the rest of the house finished cleaning itself up. Tattered pieces of stuffing jumped up and poked themselves back into the couches and chairs. The upholstery sewed itself back together. The place was becoming more welcoming by the second.

"C'mon, it's time to go!" I called to Yugi. I didn't need an alarm to tell me we had to head out.

The first alarm starting blaring as we reached the door. Yugi opened it, stepped outside, took a look back at the now perfectly homelike room and laughed. I closed the door behind us. I got why he laughed. But it was sad too.

"I wish my brother believed in safety, believed that a place like that could be real," I muttered.

Yugi nodded and threw an arm across my shoulders. It was funny the way we were the same height. We started walking away. We hadn't gotten that far when we heard the explosion and turned around.

We watched as flames consumed our former safe house. My eyes stung. It must have been from the smoke. "I would have designed things differently. Nisama might not believe a sanctuary could be real, but I know better. And that's because of him. As long as we were together I always knew I was safe."

Yugi tried to smile but it didn't work. His eyes were too troubled for one thing.

"Uh… Mokuba… Death-T?" he mumbled.

"I figured something out," I said. It was something I'd never told anyone, mostly because there wasn't anyone to tell. "I thought about it a lot when Nisama was in that coma, on all those nights when I sat by his side knowing everyone thought I was nuts for bothering. Our adoptive father used to tell Nisama that brotherhood was for kids – that with adults it was kill or be killed – and it didn't matter who."

Yugi looked even more puzzled than before I had started explaining. "I wouldn't have thought your brother would give Gozaburo the time of day, much less taking anything he said to heart," Yugi said. "I mean I can see him buying into the whole don't trust anyone thing, but this… he had to know better… I don't get why he would have listened…"

I was sorry I'd said anything. There was no way I was going to point out that Gozaburo's lessons were usually delivered at the end of a riding crop when my brother was too tired to stand, much less think. I swallowed hard. I was not going to cry.

I wasn't looking at Yugi, but I heard him whistle softly. He put his arm around my shoulders again. "Your brother… his shirt… it got torn in one of our challenges…"

I nodded. I knew what he was trying to say and I didn't want him to finish the sentence. "Nisama didn't want me to challenge you – not at Death-T, not in those duels before that you don't even remember. He ordered me not to. I thought he was treating me like a kid, that he was afraid I'd get hurt or that I'd screw things up. But I was wrong. He was afraid of what he'd do if I got big enough to challenge him."

Yugi still looked bothered. He bit his lip, then said, "You did your best to be a good brother. The rest was up to him, Mokuba. Building Death-T was his decision. So was leaving you in that Death Simulation Chamber. If you feel responsible for the things you did to help him, that'd be one thing. But you can't blame yourself for the rest."

"What gives? I thought you liked him!" I yelled.

"I do! A lot. But he's not always right and you know it! Hell, he even knows it himself or he wouldn't be trying so hard to change," Yugi said. His face was red and he looked like he was going to cry. But Yugi didn't back down. "He almost killed my grandfather. I'm not going to pretend that was anyone's fault but his."

I shook my head, confused. Yugi kept saying he was my brother's friend. So how could he say all that bad stuff about him?

"I'm glad I know how you really feel!" I yelled. I ran off. I know I'd promised Nisama to stay with Yugi, but that had been before. Yugi had helped us plenty. But if he didn't like Nisama, not really, then nothing made sense.

"Wait up, Mokuba," Yugi called out. He came running after me. I was about to slow down, mostly because I didn't know what else to do, when I saw my brother.

"Nisama!" I yelled.

He didn't turn around. I wasn't sure he'd even heard me. He was on a dusty, deserted street, like something you'd see in a movie about the Wild West. I stopped short, recognizing Yami at the other end of the street. Yugi crashed into me. His eyes got even wider as he took in the scene.

They were in the middle of a duel. No. It was more of a battle. My brother's clothes were in shreds. He was bleeding. As I watched, open-mouthed, Yami called in the Black Magician and yelled, "Attack!"

The Black Magician leveled his staff at my brother. Green lightning flew out, fast as a whip. My brother jumped back and put up his arm to protect his face. I remembered seeing him do that when Gozaburo caught us playing when he should have been studying. Just like then, he didn't get away clean. Even from a distance I could smell the charred skin, could see the blistered welts on his arm.

My brother began his counter-attack just as fast. Yami had a Dragon Capture Jar, but my brother had other monsters and other Spell Cards. He called in Raigeki. A bolt of lightning fried the Black Magician where he stood, leaving nothing, not even ashes. Then the Hitotsu-Me Giant rushed forward swinging his club. Yami dodged, but it was obvious that the blow had broken his arm.

"What on earth is going on?" Yugi said.

"What does it look like?" I snapped.

"This doesn't make any sense," Yugi mumbled.

"Why? Because you don't want to believe that Yami just tried to kill my brother for no reason? Because you figure my brother's got to be the one in the wrong any time there's trouble? Well, I'm not sitting back when he needs help."

"Wait, Mokuba!" Yugi grabbed my arm as I reached to call in my card inventory. "I don't care what it looks like. Yami would never hurt your brother. And Kaiba wouldn't attack Yami, not like this, either. I don't believe he'd do anything like Death-T ever again. I've never lied to you and I wouldn't. Not about something this important."

"Ha! You'd say anything that would keep me from jumping in," I said, trying to pull out of his grasp.

But before I could shake him off, Yugi let go and stepped back. "If you really believe that Yami would hurt your brother, that I would hurt him, then attack. But you know us, Mokuba. You have to know that even if we disagree with you brother, we'd never do anything like that."

I ran forward, calling in my inventory and picking my cards when I got close enough to attack. I needed a one-turn kill and I had the perfect combo to wipe Yami off the map if I could get in before he realized he was facing two attackers instead of one. I watched as a fireball hit my brother before burning itself out. He screamed in pain. It took a lot to make him do that.

"Please," Yugi said, quietly.

Yami had once demanded my trust. Now Yugi was asking for it. I knew I should attack, now, while I could catch Yami off guard. Hearing Yugi blaming my brother had shaken me up. I'd gone to them for help before and they'd always come through. But I didn't know if I could trust them, whether I could trust anyone who didn't love Nisama the way I did.

"We wouldn't hurt him. I promise," he insisted.

I hesitated, then nodded. If there was a chance I was going to take it. I dismissed my card inventory.

Yugi breathed a sigh of relief. "Let's find out what's going on." He played The Eye of Truth. The Eye glowed red. A golden light shot out from the pupil. The weird purple hieroglyphs surrounding it looked even more mysterious and unreadable floating in the air. Given how much time Yugi had spent with Yami inside his head, I guess some of it had rubbed off: of course he'd have an Egyptian card or two in his deck.

I gasped as its effect kicked in. My brother and Yami disappeared. In their place, twin Copycats held up mirrors, reflecting back at each other down the length of the street. A tumbleweed rolled in between them. I never got why they looked like clowns instead of being real-life cats. I looked away and realized that Mirror Force was aimed in our direction. If I had played my monsters, the one-turn kill I had planned would have rebounded right back on us.

"If you had The Eye of Truth, why didn't you play it right away? Why wait?" I asked. "I could have hurt us both if I hadn't stopped in time."

"But you did. Backing down wasn't hard because I knew you were going to come through. Besides, how can I ask for your trust without showing it myself? I know it's a lot to ask you to believe… that we can remember everything that happened and still believe in your brother and want to help. But it's true. I believe in both of you."

I'd promised myself all morning that I wasn't going to cry. But I did.

"I miss him so much. I want my Nisama!"

"I know," Yugi said, hugging me. "And we'll find them for real. I promise. Now let's head towards the next safe house."

I nodded. It was time to get going. It was hard though, walking through the empty space where I'd seen Nisama standing a moment ago. I knew it had only been an illusion, but it reminded me of how much I wanted the real thing.

* * *

 **KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

I liked being up at night while Yami slept. I liked being alone. It was what I was used to. When we were both awake everything got so muddled, just when I wanted clarity the most. Before this game, it'd been simpler. There'd been Mokuba and then there'd been everyone else. I'd judged people as duelists, or sometimes, as with Isis, as older siblings. Most of all, I'd evaluated their potential to become a threat or dismissed them as mediocrities. It had kept me and Mokuba safe. But now we were here and he was in danger, and Yami didn't fit any of those categories, except duelist.

I kept wanting a reason why Yami had helped me… a rationale why, right from the beginning, he'd never just thrown up his hands and walked away, why he'd let Yugi save my ass at Duelist's Kingdom. Maybe the reason was as simple as he'd wanted to fuck it.

It wasn't, of course, and I found – somewhat to my chagrin – that I couldn't lie to myself in a game I'd created to reveal the truth. It demanded honesty in all things – even emotions. I couldn't help wondering what I'd done, what I'd surrendered to – beyond the obvious.

I was surprised each time I woke up feeling Yami's arms around me or his hand stroking my hair. I expected him to be gone each morning. He'd gotten what he wanted; there was no real reason for him to hang around. Part of me was glad each time I woke up and it hadn't happened, each time I made some half-assed effort to ignore him or fight with him and he stuck around anyway.

Yami wasn't the type to cut and run. I knew that. He'd probably be pissed if he found out what I was thinking – but it was the way the world worked. It was hard to keep remembering he was an exception. I could argue he didn't have a choice; that as long as I was wearing the Puzzle he was stuck with me. But that didn't mean he had to talk to me, that he had to keep insisting we were friends, that he had to call me (sometimes) by my given name instead of the one I'd taken on.

Mokuba's 48 hours were up. He was on the move again. At least I assumed he was. I reminded myself that Mokuba was rock-solid dependable. He was smart. He knew when he had to leave the safe house. He'd set the alarm. There was no way he was going to get trapped inside.

But I kept playing it out in my mind… wondering if he'd gotten out of bed, if he'd packed, if he was walking out the door this very minute… as if my thoughts could control his actions. And the moment I stopped, another picture formed in my mind: Mokuba in that Death Simulation Chamber. I saw myself pressing the button that would activate the chamber, heard my voice telling him that in the world of gaming there were no brothers.

I wished Yami was awake. I'd probably end up sneering when he tried to reassure me they'd made it out in time, but I wanted to hear it anyway. I wanted someone to tell me my game hadn't succeeded in killing my brother.

"They made it out. They're fine," Noa said as he appeared in front of me. I guess I had been thinking of him, after a fashion. I shut my eyes and gulped in air, then forced myself to release it slowly. After a couple of breaths I was sure my voice wouldn't shake.

"Thank you," I said. "I appreciate it."

"It's okay." Noa paused. "I know what it's like to keep waiting to see someone you love."

Noa had spent years alone in a virtual world, refusing to believe Gozaburo had abandoned him. I almost snarled at his comparing Mokuba to that bastard. But before I could say anything, Noa added, "It's not the same. I was jealous of that, the way you and Mokuba loved each other no matter what. I never had a brother before."

I wanted to yell that he still didn't, that Mokuba was mine. But he'd been helping out a lot… and I knew all this "brother" stuff had come straight out of Mokuba's mouth.

"My mom told me that we'd always be best friends. I never got how she knew," I said.

"She sounds cool. You're lucky," Noa said.

I didn't remember much about my mom, and my father hadn't been around, but I doubted Noa had ever had a conversation like the ones I was starting to remember, with Gozaburo or whatever nonentity he'd married. I nodded.

"Do you know why my father never remarried?" Noa asked suddenly.

I'd never thought about it before since getting adopted had served my purpose, but for someone who resented adoption as much as Gozaburo, it was odd that remarriage had been so thoroughly off the table.

"He said that another marriage would just remind him of his failures. I'd let him down and he wasn't going to risk investing that much time and effort in creating another disappointment."

I'd spent too much time fighting off Gozaburo's labels myself to be surprised or dismissive of how deeply that barb had struck Noa. His life had faded; the memory of his father saying that had remained.

It was strange standing here chatting with Noa, given that we'd once tried to kill each other. But I didn't hate him. I wasn't sure when that had changed or even why. I could list the practical reasons, of course: he'd helped us escape from his virtual world; he'd been carrying messages back and forth for us in this one; he was my link to Mokuba. But there were the other reasons too: Noa got how hard it was to change and he knew what it was like to care so much for someone that the thought of them in danger hurt.

"When did we stop being enemies?" I asked.

"We're not any more, are we?" he asked. I don't know if he was looking for reassurance or just confirming a fact, but I nodded.

"Mokuba's awesome. I've been in his head… back when I kidnapped him. I hate myself for what I did, but I don't regret it. I can't."

He looked me in the eye as he said that, like he was testing out whether I'd meant it when I said we weren't enemies. I pressed my lips together. Noa had let me know, right from when we started playing this damned game, how Mokuba was doing. He'd been decent about it too. He got what it was like to have to keep waiting, how hard it was to hold on to hope, when hope was such a treacherous enemy, the kind who'd stab you in the back and then laugh in your face when you spun around with the force of the blow. And Noa had taken my side against Yami. He'd done what I'd been unable to do: put into words just why Yami's continual taunts about my game had hurt; he'd said it in a way Yami had understood. It didn't erase the past, nothing could, but Noa had earned ten seconds of my time before I started yelling.

Noa saw me waiting for him to continue, swallowed and said, "Because his head's the most amazing place. Being part of him, even briefly, made me see the person I'd become and realize it wasn't who I wanted to be. Meeting him changed me. But even when I was inside Mokuba's soul, I still couldn't believe someone that wonderful, that forgiving, existed."

I nodded. Mokuba was the center of my being. And I was still surprised by him, all the time.

"But with you… I don't like what I'm seeing a lot of the time… maybe because it's so familiar. But at the same time, knowing someone else has been there too… it makes a difference. Weird, huh?" Noa said.

I nodded again. It was strange starting to feel connected to people who weren't Mokuba.

"You know what it was like," Noa continued, the words tumbling out now. "Having to be perfect, having to prove yourself to someone who was never going to approve, losing yourself…"

"Wondering if that was the game plan all along. And when it was over, wondering who'd won – and why the battle hadn't ended," I added.

It wasn't something I was used to saying out loud. It helped that Noa was starting to turn transparent. His time limit must have been almost up.

Noa swallowed again, then nodded. He started speaking, as quickly as he could, rushing to get it all out before he disappeared. "We have the same last name, the one no one ever associates with Mokuba. For us though… my father loved me. He hated you…"

"But we were both raised by the same man," I finished for him as he vanished.

I ran back to Yami. It was time for him to get up, and I had to tell him the news. I shook him awake and let him know Mokuba and Yugi had made it out of the safe house in time. He grabbed me and kissed me. I don't know if he meant it as a greeting or as an invitation. I froze. For the past two days we'd had sex every time we'd stopped for the night, every time we woke up in the morning. I'd be lying if I'd said that I hadn't enjoyed it. But now… Mokuba was out there. I couldn't.

I pulled back a little. Yami took a good look at my face. Then he hugged me, but differently; it was an embrace, not a grope. He said, "They'll be fine. They can reach the next safe house by nightfall. We can't be that far away, either. Let's catch up." He hugged me again and stood up.

He knew.

He cared. Not just about Mokuba, but about what I was feeling – something I barely cared about myself. Yami made me feel wanted. And I liked it, the way he hugged me even when he wasn't expecting a return, just because I mattered to him, just because it made him feel good too. Even worse, I was getting used to Yami caring, getting used to him touching me and laughing at me and all the things that friends, and maybe even lovers did, things I'd never thought about before, at least not in relation to my own life, since they had no connection whatsoever to survival or business or winning.

I twitched away from Yami, needing to hit something or stomp off, anything to shake away these alien emotions. But I was wearing the Puzzle; no matter how far I stomped, Yami would be there when I stopped.

And I wanted him to be. That was the problem.

I could tell myself all I wanted that I was breaking free of Gozaburo's rules and codes, that I was moving forward, that I was making my own decisions. But no matter how fast I talked, no matter how far I tried to outrun this feeling that letting Yami in had been the ultimate proof of my own weakness… I couldn't outrun it any more than I could Yami.

But I wouldn't give in to it either. I refused.

I put my hand on Yami's shoulder to make up for shying away. It wasn't enough. As soon as my fingers hit his arms, I grabbed him and yanked him closer, pulling him off balance as I returned his hug. His hair tickled my chin. I raised one hand to touch it as I pushed him back on his feet.

"Let's do this together," I said.

Yami nodded. We ended up heading out side by side. For once Yami was silent, as lost in his thoughts as I. It was fitting, I suppose; we were more alike than I'd thought. Oh, I'd always known he could be just as arrogant, just as competitive. But now I had to wonder just what voices he had banging around inside his head telling him he wasn't real. They weren't saying the same things as mine, but they were there all the same. And Yami was even walking the same tightrope I was – between fighting them off and wondering if they were right, wondering if they were real and it was the hope that there was something worth fighting towards that was the illusion.

The quiet was restful. It gave me time to settle down. I thought about something Yami had just said. He'd meant to be encouraging when he'd pointed out that we should be meeting up with Mokuba soon. And he was right. But each time I checked the map we barely seemed to have moved from where we'd been the day before. It was hard to tell though, I could only get an extreme long range view and the zoom feature had stopped working. I'd shrugged it off at first. After all, the whole game was an un-beta tested prototype, there were bound to be flaws. But now I started to wonder just how random this particular bug was.

I looked around, not that the surroundings could tell me much. The setting changed from rocks to deserts to grassland to meadows to forests with the occasional deserted street thrown in. I hadn't gotten around to adding castles or whole towns. There wasn't a pattern to it; I'd been laying down surface as fast as I could. I'd planned to refine it later.

We'd cycled back to walking though a forest when I noticed something that couldn't be dismissed as a random computer error. There was a trampled down clearing to the side of the path. I went to investigate. I recognized it instantly, even though the bodies were gone. The game was set to remove them. But it also let any physical changes remain. There's been a fight here. The ground was scorched with dragon-fire… Blue Eyes White Dragon fire to be exact. Saplings had been broken and trampled into the ground. The trees that remained were gouged and scratched, like someone had swung a flail or hacked at them with a sword. I was bending down to examine the scorch marks on the ground when I noticed the hoof-prints. I traced the groove left by a steel-shod horse. I shut my eyes and remembered Yami thundering towards me atop of Nightmare Horse. But that momentary, involuntary flash of desire was drowned in anger.

"Damn this fucking shit! I've had it with the head games!" I yelled as Yami ran up to me.

He looked at the ground, our surroundings, then back at me.

"We're back at the scene of our last fight," he said.

"Tell me something I don't know," I said sourly.

"But that would mean…" Yami's voice trailed off.

"That we've been wandering around in circles. Yes," I finished.

"For how long?" Yami asked, still staring at the prints carved into the earth. I wondered if, like me, he was remembering the battle – and its aftermath.

"Not sure. A few days at least. I stopped being able to trace our progress on the map. This is why. We haven't been making any."

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked sharply.

I shrugged. "I figured it was a computer glitch with the map feature. I was planning to check it out. It seemed like a routine maintenance issue."

"I'm starting to hate the word 'glitch.' It seems come up so often," Yami said.

I had no idea why he was grinning when he was just as lost as me.

"Think, Kaiba…" he paused after saying my name, after seeing me frown. "It makes sense…"

"It's not the way this game is supposed to work," I interrupted, glaring at him. "Maps aren't supposed to freeze. I designed it, and I didn't plan for any of this!"

Yami's grin widened. "You might not have planned this particular circumstance, but the game's working the way it's supposed to, nonetheless. You designed it to pick up on our thoughts and feelings and create challenges based on them. Maybe we're stuck in this loop for a reason – and it's not because your game got the hiccups."

"It's called a virus, not a hiccup, ignoramus. And the firewalls are so high that nothing can get in – well, nothing we hadn't been stupid enough to invite in ourselves." I shrugged. "Maybe I can use one of the other inventory items like the compass to compensate."

Yami rolled his eyes. The grin widened to a smirk. "I hope you like running in circles since you seem so set on doing it."

"You believe whatever stupid thing you want. As soon as I can, I'll look at the program and fix whatever broken lines of code are in there. And then maybe you'll admit that's all that's going on here."

I turned from Yami's smug face. But before I could walk away, the Wicked Worm Beast started to form in right in front of my face.

"I don't believe this," I muttered. I could hear Yami laughing behind me.

I called in my shortest swords. I wanted to be close enough for his stench to swamp my senses, close enough that the hiss of his tentacles would drown out the sound of Yami's chuckles. It didn't help.

Yami stopped laughing long enough to call out, "He's late. I've been waiting for him to show up ever since we started this conversation."

"Shut up, Yami," I said as I disemboweled the monster. I turned back to face him, still bloody, then looked away and started walking.

Yami ran up to me and grabbed my arm. He swung me around to face him.

"I don't care how mad you are. Don't close me out," he ordered.

"Don't you get it – I can't, and that's the problem! From the very first you've had a power even Gozaburo never had – the ability to reach right into my reality and change it… to make me believe things… care about things. And I can't stop."

"Do you want to?" Yami asked. He sounded short of air, like he was trying to talk and hold his breath at the same time.

I hadn't meant it like that, hadn't meant to feed the voices in his head telling him he wasn't real. I ground my teeth in frustration.

"No," I said. "That's the worst part of all. You're seeing me chased around by my own computer errors, you're seeing my past literally attack me, you're seeing stuff I never wanted anyone to know. And I know how I should feel, how much I should hate it. But I don't. I swear to you, I don't. You have my back and I have yours. I never thought I'd say that about anyone but Mokuba, but I mean it."

I stopped, aware of how awkward and barren my own words sounded. And just like us, they were running around in a circle. I didn't wait for Yami to say, "I told you so," although for once he'd stopped smirking. I bent down and pressed my lips against Yami's. I was always surprised by how soft they were, and how warm. The pressure was there, intense and growing, but it didn't feel like a punch or a gag. "Damn it to hell, Yami. You're here. You're real. It matters."

The look on his face as I raised my head from his made me want to jump backwards and lean in at the same time.

"Don't patronize me," I said. "Don't pretend this game hasn't been a fucked up mess from the beginning."

Yami put his hands on my shoulders. Almost automatically, I bent down towards him. He kissed me back, but lightly, so I'd know he wasn't just looking for sex. He reached up to touch my cheek and said, "I swear to you it isn't. I have faith in this game. And if you can't right now, that's okay. I'll believe in it enough for both of us until you can."

* * *

 _**Thanks to Bnomiko for editing this each new version of this chapter – and listening to me go around in circles.** _

_**Thanks to Meshi for typo-catching!** _

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** The funny thing about writing is that sometimes when you have two problems one of them solves the other. I was getting a bit worried about the fact it was taking so long for the two teams to meet up with each other. At the same time, I really wanted to covey that Yami and (especially) Kaiba were really going around in circles with their emotions. Then it suddenly hit me that it they were literally going around in circles as well, it would explain why they hadn't met Yugi and Mokuba yet. It was also kind of funny that in different ways, Kaiba and Mokuba were both struggling with the same thing in this chapter.

To everyone celebrating Thanksgiving: Happy Holidays!

 **Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my Live Journal account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated.

 _As always, comments would be adored…_


	32. Legends of the Blue Eyes White Dragon

**Anime Note:** This story takes place right after Battle City. The DOMA arc doesn't exist in this story.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 32: LEGENDS OF THE BLUE EYES WHITE DRAGON**

 _No, you can't always get what you want_

 _No, you can't always get what you want_

 _No, you can't always get what you want_

 _But if you try sometime, you just might find_

 _You get what you need…_

 _\- Mick Jagger and Keith Richards_

 _Considering how much time characters spend searching, it's surprising how rarely they ask themselves if what they're looking for is actually what they want – much less what they need. For every Edward Elric, who marches through Full Metal Alchemist absolutely certain of all three, there's a Han Solo, who changes his roles and his goals far more often than his shirt. And even though Princess Leia focuses with admirable single-mindedness on taking down the Empire, she manages to find love – surely a lower priority item than saving the universe – along the way._

 **YAMI'S NARRATIVE**

Kaiba had told me that he was glad I was here with him. Then, predictably, he'd stalked off, the hounds of his past once again nipping at his heels. I'd followed, smiling. His limit for expressing his feelings had increased to ten sentences, more if you counted the incomplete ones. And I would treasure each one. Now he was silent again. I didn't mind. It was peaceful. I needed the time to think.

When I'd first arrived here, everything had been so strange. I'd had to learn to live inside my own skin; had to learn to stop listening for Yugi's voice inside my head. It had felt so solitary. Three thousand years ago, when I'd had a life – had I been this alone?

And yet each time I made love to Kaiba I'd felt a new kind of bonding, none the less potent because it was a union of bodies and not minds. But I couldn't say that, even to myself, without shaking my head in denial. My heart had been anything but an uninvolved bystander. Desire had flowed between us, formless but real; our emotions had been carried in the blood that heated and pumped through our bodies. It had been a joining of bodies… but our souls had been part of the amalgam, like two dissimilar metals fusing; like copper and tin melding to form bronze.

All day, as we walked, I could sense Kaiba counting the hours until Yugi and Mokuba could possibly have reached the next safe house.

"The safe houses are eight hours away from each other," Kaiba explained, breaking our silent march as the afternoon wore on. "I hadn't bothered with them originally. I always figured they were a waste of time and storage space, but Mokuba insisted I include them."

"Makes sense," I said as I struggled to keep up with his longer legs. Kaiba always picked up the pace when he started talking.

"Yeah, they're a standard video game feature. I would have had to put them in eventually."

"That's not what I meant," I protested, but Kaiba went on as if I hadn't spoken.

"I thought they were too close together, but Mokuba figured people would enjoy the game more if they could take a break if things got too tough, that it'd keep them playing longer. He's not just my Vice President for show."

"I know. It's what I was trying to say before you interrupted me. Mokuba would think to look for safety because that's what you always provided for him."

Kaiba stopped so suddenly I almost crashed into him. "Cut the crap, Yami. I tried to kill him once, remember?" he growled.

"How can anyone forget when you bring it up every chance you get?" I said.

"I don't bring it up. It's here in front of me, every minute of every day. If you'd betrayed Yugi, if you'd hurt him: would you be any different?" Kaiba demanded.

Mutely I shook my head.

"Then why should I?"

His words were a challenge, but was he searching for an answer that would allow him to live with himself as well?

I wasn't sure I had one to give. And I didn't know how to explain something I barely understood myself. Kaiba was right. I'd never forgive myself if any of my actions ever hurt Yugi. And if the unimaginable happened, Yugi would be the one, not just to forgive, but to understand, first. But there was a self-destructive aura to Kaiba's refusal to forgive himself. I shared it; that didn't mean we were both right.

I looked at Kaiba, suddenly seeing all the minor cuts and bruises he steadily refused to heal. He kept insisting that we needed to conserve our supply of healing potion as far as possible. It was, like so many of the things Kaiba said, reasonable on the surface. But I doubted it was the whole story. Kaiba had taken more and harder hits than any of us. The emotional cost had been even higher. Kaiba's sense of strategy had never included a concern for his own welfare. He'd said he'd built this game to rid himself of the demons of anger and hatred that he'd let in and fostered until they'd almost ruined his life. But looking at his slightly battered form, I wondered: had he come into this game looking for forgiveness or punishment?

"There's a reason Yugi's a better duelist than either of us," I said, knowing that would attract Kaiba's attention. I ignored his derisive snort. "Yugi would say that life is about balance. Blame yourself if you have to, but accept that you've changed, that you don't need to keep living in your own private Death Simulation Chamber."

He frowned and started walking again. He didn't answer. I'd shattered Kaiba's soul at Death-T. He'd rebuilt it, stronger than before, but with his guilt at its core like an offering laid atop an altar. If it disappeared would the entire edifice come tumbling down?

No. Kaiba was stronger than that. He might, as always, have picked the hardest, most punishing road possible, but he would also see it through until he won out against every obstacle – even the ones he kept throwing in his own way. If nothing else, I would trust to Kaiba's own bullheadedness.

I wanted to be part of that journey, to walk each step alongside him. I'd been so caught up with this world, with feeling alive inside of it… now, for the first time I wondered: what would happen when we finally left and returned to the world outside? I'd teased Kaiba that he was going around in circles. Now I was the one wondering whether I wanted to know where my road ended.

Part of me longed to be part of Yugi again. But there was another growing part that treasured each moment I was simply myself, each moment in a body indisputably mine. Was it even possible to go back to the way things had been? I remembered Kaiba reading a line that had been added to his game in hieroglyphs, "All that happens here becomes real." What did that refer to: these strange new feelings – or the fact I was as tied to the Puzzle as I'd ever been, no matter what this world told me, no matter what this body made me believe?

I was relieved when Kaiba broke into my thoughts.

"I just hope Mokuba's okay. They should have reached the next safe house by now. I'll try and see if Noa has any news," he said, stopping once again.

Noa's smile as he appeared told us everything we needed to know. Yugi and Mokuba had found the next safe house. They'd faced a challenge along the way but they were fine. It was nice watching Seto and Noa. Their conversation was awkward, full of pauses, and yet it was the most at ease with each other I'd ever seen them.

As soon as Noa had disappeared, Seto had reached out to me, as if he could only find relief in action. He'd covered my face with kisses. It felt a little like being brushed by the rain. I was always surprised by how gentle Kaiba could be sometimes… that he had any gentleness left within his thin frame. Kaiba finally broke off and leaned his head against the top of mine.

"I don't think I've ever had anyone to be relieved with before. It was always just me and Mokuba, and he was too young to know there was anything to be relieved about," Kaiba observed.

I had my own opinion on the subject, but I kept silent. It was nice being held by Kaiba while listening to him talk. I didn't want it to stop. But Kaiba was still Kaiba. "Let's go," he said, heading out in what seemed to be a straight line again, forgetting for the moment that we had no idea if we were still going around in circles or not.

We finally stopped for the evening. It had been days since I'd used the Millennium Items. I'd come so close to death the last time. And yet… didn't having a life to lose prove that I had a life at all? Suddenly, even more than my past I craved that feeling of fighting for my life, of hanging on to it as tightly as I could.

I looked up with a start as Kaiba said, "You keep staring at your backpack."

"There are only three of them left untried – the Eye, the Key and the Rod," I answered.

"Which one are you going to pick?" he asked.

"Whichever comes to hand," I said, reaching into my backpack. "I know what happened the last time… I almost died. But I have to do this, whatever the risk." I didn't add that I felt alive when my life was in danger. I was certain Kaiba understood without my needing to admit it aloud.

He shrugged. It was restful being with someone who understood compulsion so well.

My hand closed around the shaft of the Rod. "This belongs to you," I said as I started to draw it out.

Kaiba snorted. Then abruptly the sound disappeared as I pulled the Rod out of the backpack.

I didn't have time to set it anywhere or even focus, when Kaiba crushed me to him. His mouth came down on mine. The Rod was trapped between our bodies. I pulled back for a second, startled. Kaiba's hair was sun streaked; his skin was tanned. I looked down at our now-disarranged linen robes. The man I'd been kissing wasn't Kaiba. I was staring at my High Priest. I was dressed to match him.

"A pharaoh shouldn't be afraid to finish what he starts," he mocked.

I reached up and pulled him back to me, not sure if I was being swept up in events long past or following my own desire. We fit together with the ease of long practice. I wedged my leg between his; he moaned at the contact. I could feel myself – no, my former self – respond just as eagerly. Had I had this sense of surety, this sense that this was where I belonged? For the first time I wondered if I would fight being drawn into this world. I'd been chasing after my past; now I was being seduced by it. I stripped the robes from my priest's shoulders, baring his body to the waist. He opened his mouth for my tongue as Kaiba was just now learning to do.

Kaiba was just as eager, but there was always a note of desperation to his touch, to the moans that at times had seemed wrenched out of him. Kaiba kissed me as if trying to drown out the voices in his head, as if taking me in would exorcise them. My High Priest was reacting with pure unfettered desire. It was what I wanted Kaiba to feel, but only when he came to it on his own. This Seto had no hesitation, no fear; the only tension between us was the pleasurable one created as we grinded against each other. And each joyous movement reminded me this was not the man I'd made love to. The very sweetness of the moment stilled my desire if not my hands. My High Priest's body was the same, if less scarred. Everything else was worlds apart.

I tried to pull away, certain now: this wasn't what I wanted, this wasn't the person I wanted to be with, even though he'd been my lover all those millennia ago, even though he looked the same. But I was trapped, a passenger in this body. I couldn't jump back, I couldn't take back a single caress, I couldn't stop myself from kissing him, from fondling his body, from pushing him back towards my bed. I couldn't stop my own body from reacting, my nostrils from being filled with the scent of him, my mouth from tasting, from claiming his. Whatever was going to happen had already happened 3,000 years ago. I'd wanted to relive my past, to be a part of it. Now I was caught.

I fought, hopelessly, to break this unwanted embrace. Then suddenly, I was free. The High Priest had disappeared; so had my room. I was standing in front of a temple. I welcomed the cool wind against my face. I was in Yugi's school uniform again. Kaiba was standing beside me; his hands were on top of mine, holding the Rod.

"What was going on?" he asked. "You looked like you were struggling or in pain or something. I figured I'd better step in before you forgot to breathe again. As soon as I grabbed this thing," he said looking down at the Rod, "I wound up here."

I shook my head. Before I could answer, we shared a vision, just as we had at Battle City. We saw Kaiba's former incarnation standing in front of us. Mercifully, he was fully clothed this time. He was holding an unconscious girl with long silver hair. Then the one thing that could have distracted Kaiba appeared. His Blue Eyes White Dragon rose up from the ground, towering over the High Priest and the girl in his arms.

"What's happening?" I asked Kaiba.

Kaiba shrugged. "How the hell should I know? Maybe he's feeding it lunch."

Then the High Priest and the girl disappeared. Only the dragon remained.

"It's good to see you, to be able to speak with you," the dragon said. Her voice was soft and unmistakably feminine. I jumped. It was the first time anyone in my visions had been aware of my presence. Then I realized the dragon was focused solely on Kaiba.

"What are you?" Kaiba asked. I was surprised by the naked longing on his face. It made him seem younger.

"Now? I suppose you could say that I'm the soul of your Blue Eyes White Dragon."

"What do you mean 'now'?" he asked as if talking to a dragon was an everyday experience – or maybe he just felt that comfortable in her presence.

"If I told you that my name was Kisara, would you be any wiser for the knowledge?"

"How come we can talk to you?" I asked, stunned by that most of all.

Her dragon face was not made to show surprise, but she jumped slightly when she heard my voice; she'd obviously forgotten that anyone besides Kaiba existed.

"Every other time I've used the Millennium Items, I could see my past, but I couldn't make myself heard, even when I tried to warn Mahaado of his impending death, even when I tried… even when I wanted to be somewhere, anywhere else, I couldn't move," I explained.

She was answered me, but she turned to Kaiba to do it. "You named me your pride and soul. How could I stay silent when you have found me again?" She faced me. "I, too, know what it is like to scream unheard, to watch a loved one fall into darkness."

"I tried to drag you down with me," Kaiba said bitterly.

"And then to see him struggle back to the light," she finished, ignoring Kaiba's interruption. She turned to him again, could not stop looking at him. "You were not feeding me lunch. I was the girl you saw. She died 3,000 years ago. I do not miss her. But I owe you both a debt of love and gratitude. You freed me to become a dragon."

But Kaiba was frowning. " _I_ didn't free you – that was some other guy that died way back when you did. Maybe that's why I've never been able to capture you in a hologram, no matter how hard I've tried."

"How can you capture what's already yours?" she said. She was a dragon. She had a long narrow snout instead of lips. She couldn't smile, but I heard it in her voice all the same.

"Are you mine? I stole your card…" Kaiba asked, sounding like he'd moved backwards in time until he was as young as the eight year old version of himself that I'd met before.

"I know. That doesn't matter. You named me your faithful servant. You charged me with lighting the way to your future. Do not doubt me now."

I glanced at Kaiba. One advantage of being so much shorter was that occasionally, when he looked down, I could see into his eyes before he remembered to guard their expression. His looked troubled.

"I can't tell which one of us you're talking about – him or me," he muttered.

She dipped her head. "I know the answer you want, and it pains me to be unable to give it to you, but honesty is the only coin I can offer. I can't separate the past and the present. They flow together like the many tributaries that empty into the mighty Nile. Once they have joined the onward flow, how can anyone trace each drop of water back to its source?"

Kaiba frowned at that. Then he shook his head and visibly pushed it aside; it was clear he didn't want to share his dragon, even with a man who'd died 3,000 years ago. "You're not making sense," he complained. "You keep saying you're my servant, that you're bound to me. Then you keep saying you're free. How can you be both?"

"Isn't the essence of liberty being able to choose your own bindings? Being able to choose the commitments that make your spirits soar higher than a dragon's wings can carry them?"

"I don't care about the past. You're sticking with me now, despite everything I've done," Kaiba persisted, needing it spelled out.

Again I felt, rather than saw, her smile as she nodded. "Not _despite_ everything you've done, but because you had the strength to struggle back from the worst of it. It would have been so easy for you to give up, but you never hesitated."

Kaiba had boasted of his dragons so often. Now that she was saying everything I was sure he wanted to hear, he looked stunned. Kaiba clearly had forgotten she'd once been a girl. He just as obviously preferred her as a dragon. But I wondered at her transformation.

"You said you had been a girl once. What happened to you?" I asked.

"I died. We all did. Now only our avatars remain, caught on playing cards. We were fighting Zorc and his minions – I will not call his puppets, allies. Somehow, that fight became frozen in time, when you were sealed in the Puzzle. There may have been a connection. I don't know. I only know my world was given millennia of peace before the final accounting would come due. I'm sorry we could not win the battle. It's your fight, now. You must finish it here."

"We will win the battle you gave your lives for," I swore. "This world will become their final graveyard. Can you tell me… Bakura said…" I paused, saw Kaiba looking at me, waiting to see if I'd chicken out, then continued, "…he said that I killed his family, that they were human sacrifices, that forging my Puzzle caused their deaths."

She shook her head. "I'm sorry. We met only after the Items had been created. I know nothing of their making." She turned again to Kaiba. "Even with the power of the Millennium Items this opportunity will soon close."

"I wish…" Kaiba started.

"We had more time. I know," his dragon answered.

"I've always wondered if your scales are as smooth as they look," he said, releasing the Rod to step toward her.

Startled by the sudden weight of the object in my hands I dropped it. Each time before the past had pulled me in. This time it released us so abruptly we ended up falling on our asses back on the forest floor. Kisara was gone. Kaiba had landed on a pile of leaves. He brushed them out of his hair and shook his head. I was used to his eyes being distant or disinterested or covered by his bangs. Now he looked lost.

"I'm sorry she's gone, Seto," I said.

"Don't call me that!" he hissed.

"What? Seto?" I asked, confused.

His glare was answer enough.

"You frown and insult me when I call you 'Kaiba.' I feel like I'm betraying you by calling you the only name I've ever used. And now, calling you 'Seto' has you up in arms as well? I'm beginning to think 'Idiot' is the only name you should answer to."

"You've been chasing after your past since the moment we arrived. How am I supposed to know who you want to answer? Even _she_ couldn't tell us apart."

"You're the only one I see when I look at you, not a past I can't even remember. I swear it."

His lips twitched. "I'm the idiot? You can't even remember your own name!" I was surprised at how affectionate his insults were starting to sound.

"Of course I can. It's Yami. And even if I forgot everything else, I'd still know who I want beside me, Seto Kaiba."

We'd been sitting on the ground. Now I moved to straddle Kaiba's long legs, leaned forward and kissed him. As always he tensed slightly before he relaxed, before he remembered that touch could bring pleasure, maybe before he even remembered who I was… that I was his lover, that it was okay that he was letting me so close.

I wanted him to feel safe, I wanted that moment of hesitation to disappear forever, to vanish into the past along with my memories. Right now though, I could have cried to see the final proof that I was here, with this man who, in his own way, was struggling as hard as I was to make sense of the past, to reach the future, to stay in the present. This was the Seto – this was the world – I wanted.

Kaiba kissed me with an intensity, a fire, that warmed me to life. He gripped me slightly too tightly, pressed me to him a little too desperately. If I removed the Puzzle from his neck, would the force of his embrace hold me in place?

I'd started the evening embracing a ghost, an unremembered phantom from my past. Kaiba was triumphantly scarred, gloriously flawed, utterly real… and mine. I pushed him back, ground against him with a roughness that matched his own, then fumbled out of my clothes as quickly as I could while he shrugged out of his… keeping my mouth glued to his the whole time, trying to kiss him and moan at the same time.

My past was a mystery; my life had been on hold for 3,000 years. I wasn't going to waste another moment.

* * *

 _**Thanks to Bnomiko for editing this chapter.** _

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** It's kind of funny that Yami and Kaiba are hypothetically discussing how Yami would feel if he hurt Yugi, because that's something that happens in the DOMA arc. But I think Yami would find it hard to imagine that hurting Yugi is something he'd ever do.

 **ANNIVERSARY NOTE:** It's hard for me to believe but I've just hit the second anniversary of when I began posting "Giving Up the Ghosts." I tried to think of something witty or insightful to say, then decided to go with what was uppermost in my mind, simple as it is: Thank you for reading. Feeling like people are following and enjoying my story has been a pleasure and has encouraged me to keep telling it.

Happy Holidays!

 _As always, comments would be adored…_


	33. The Mask of Remnants

**CHAPTER 33: THE MASK OF REMNANTS**

 _There's always a moment when the attention shifts, however briefly, from the main characters to the wise elders who guide them on their quests… providing advice and the occasional magic sword along the way. No one could begrudge these geriatric helpers their 15 minutes of fame, but even more striking than their general awesomeness is the extreme eagerness of their (usually) teenaged charges to be led._

 _Dorothy is so desperate for advice as she stumbles down the yellow brick road, she's willing to listen to a scarecrow – even after he explains that he doesn't have a brain. And if you think about it, political jokes aside, brainlessness isn't usually the most sought after quality in an advisor. It makes sense that Luke Skywalker would listen to Obi-Wan Kenobi while he's alive. But Luke keeps right on listening to Obi-Wan's disembodied voice after he dies, regardless of whether it's telling him to turn off target guidance systems or seek out adorably incoherent gremlins on remote planets – without ever once wondering if the voice in his head is… well… just a voice in his head._

 _Maybe it's more relevant than it seems at first glance that Dorothy and Luke had other, more mundane mentors in their pre-quest lives. However bad Uncle Owen and Auntie Em were at understanding the angst-ridden depths of their children's souls, they were demonstrably better at keeping them fed and clothed and trying (at times misguidedly) to do what was best for the youngsters in their care._

 _But what about those other archetypal orphans – the ones without an Auntie Em to call their own… the ones who grew up without the slightest expectation that any adult would ever take their welfare – much less them – to heart? If they ever ran across an Obi-Wan Kenobi, would they see an Obi-wannabe instead?_

 **SUGOROKU'S NARRATIVE**

I looked down at my little helper. He was stocking the shelves, then carefully checking each item off the inventory list. I would have said that it was any child's dream to work in a game store, but his movements were too careful, too methodical, too overly precise to indicate anything as unrestrained as glee. That was left to his even-younger brother. He was squeaking with excitement as he opened each carton. In the months he'd been here the little black-haired imp had been the only one able to get his older brother to smile. I wondered what I'd taken on.

"All done! And I helped lots!" my little mop-head squealed. I ruffled his hair.

"You've worked very hard, both of you. Why don't you go upstairs, boys, while I lock up down here? There's soda in the refrigerator. I think you've earned it, don't you?"

The younger (and easier) one nodded enthusiastically, glanced at his brother, received a nod, and dashed for the back staircase that led to our apartment. The older waited until the door had shut behind his brother, then faced me, his blue eyes blazing.

"He's not _your_ boy."

"The Domino City Court would disagree. I'm pretty sure we have papers registered there saying that both of you are my boys."

"Why'd you adopt us anyway, old man?"

"Is it so hard to believe I wanted you?" I answered.

He rolled his eyes and groaned. "That's the kind of bullshit thing people say."

I sighed as I stared into skeptical blue eyes. The cynical expression in them rested oddly on his 10 year old face.

"Did you ever just know that something was the right thing for you to do? Crucial, even if you didn't know why?" I asked.

"No. That's stupid," he answered. I tried not to smile at the aggravated look on his face.

… I sat bolt upright with a jerk. I looked around, confused for a moment. How long had I been asleep? Evidently long enough to have dreamed I was Seto Kaiba's adoptive father.

I frowned, trying to piece everything together as I rubbed my eyes. The dream had been curiously intense, surprisingly real. But it wasn't. The Kaiba brothers weren't my adopted children. I wasn't in the game shop. I was in the Kaiba Corporation computer lab. I was wearing a VR helmet.

I took it off and looked around the now-familiar room, slowly accepting that I was here and not in bed. As always, I stared at the one remaining, unfinished VR pod sitting in the back of the large room, then glanced at the vacant space where the other three pods had stood and vanished. The empty tiles were a constant reminder that the boys had vanished into a virtual world, bodies and all, proof that this was really happening. I shook my head. I probably should be home in bed, but now that I could reach my grandson, could catch glimpses of how he was doing, could talk to him… I couldn't leave.

"Are you alright?"

Fubeta had spoken quietly, but his voice echoed in the hushed room. I glanced around, confirming that Isono was gone; probably he was in the room next door. Isono and Fubeta had turned it into a make-shift apartment. I was sure neither of them had been home, except to pick up a fresh load of black suits and white shirts, since this had begun.

"If you want to stay here a little longer and then rest, I can open your game store and mind it in your place when morning comes," Fubeta offered.

"I wouldn't want to inconvenience you," I said. It was awkward, having two grown men driving me back and forth and running my errands. At the same time, I wanted to agree. I couldn't leave, not yet. And the thought of resting afterwards was tempting.

"It's not an inconvenience. I'm not good with electronics," he said with a slight smile. "I can't work on the VR Pod without Isono's supervision. But you're helping Seto-sama. Anything I do for you aids him."

I frowned. I couldn't get used to the suffix, "most honored." At first I would have been angry at their blindness, at their giving Kaiba a title he didn't deserve. Now my discomfort was simpler and untinged with contempt. The title sat uneasily on a teenager – or it should have.

"Thank you. It would be a help if you could open the store for me. I saw Yugi and Mokuba earlier. They've reached the next safe house. I couldn't stay on long; I had to give the equipment a rest. I'd like to tell the other two, but I haven't seen them yet."

"If you meet Seto-sama, inform him that no one is suspicious of his absence. The media believes he's working on a business deal with Industrial Illusions," Fubeta said, as if omitting Pegasus's name would make Kaiba forget who owned the company.

"I'll tell him," I promised.

"Thank you," Fubeta said, bowing.

"Have you worked for Kaiba Corporation long?" I asked.

"I was in sales at the former Kaiba Corporation," he answered quietly.

I stared at him, pleased my mouth didn't drop open as I mentally flipped through the memories of the loud, joking, salesmen I'd known. It was hard to imagine Fubeta being one of them.

"I worked in the back office. I was in charge of making sure the orders went out promptly. I was good at my job," he said.

I nodded. I'd seen his quiet efficiency first-hand.

"I never thought about how many people died because I was good at my job. Even when I turned on the news… it never felt real, never felt like it had anything to do with me." He paused. "I guess I felt like I was just one man; there was nothing I could do. Seto-sama showed me differently. There is no limit to what one man can accomplish if he's determined enough to make a difference."

"One boy," I corrected.

Fubeta pressed his lips together but didn't answer. I handed him the keys in silence. I put the VR helmet on again. I tried to reach Yugi but the safe house was dark. They'd been going to bed when I'd left. I started switching views. I could see my surroundings anywhere my avatar had a portal, but each vista was empty of familiar faces.

Suddenly I realized one landscape – the one I'd been viewing when I'd fallen asleep earlier – hadn't been as empty as I'd thought. The dark shape on the ground near my signaling portal was Kaiba. He was asleep. The blanket had slipped off. His chest was bare. I breathed a sigh of relief as I watched the rise and fall of his chest. Possibly my dream had affected me.

I looked for Yami. If Kaiba was asleep, Yami couldn't be far. Kaiba started to twitch, restlessly, as if his dream had turned sour. Yami came into view as he knelt by Kaiba's side. Like Kaiba, he was shirtless. I saw Yami's lips move. He spoke too softly for me to hear what he was saying, but the gentle gesture as he brushed Kaiba's hair off his face spoke volumes. Kaiba opened his eyes.

"Everything's fine. I promise. Go back to sleep, Seto," Yami said.

I'd never heard anyone, even Mokuba, use Seto's name before. Then again, I'd never seen him stripped to the waist.

Then Yami leaned forward and kissed Kaiba on the mouth. My own mouth dropped open in shock.

"Why do you do that?" Kaiba asked when they finally ended their kiss. His voice was hoarse.

"Do what?"

"Come over. Kiss me. Do you think I have to get hugged like a kid every time I wake up or go to sleep?"

Yami sat down and shifted Kaiba's head into his lap. "Maybe I'm the one that needs to hug you. Did you ever think of that? Anyway, I know what it's like to have nightmares."

"Who said I was having a nightmare?" Kaiba demanded sharply, lifting his head and raising his voice at the same time.

"Of course you weren't. You were simply getting exercise by thrashing around in your sleep," Yami said with a grin.

Kaiba grunted and dropped his head back into Yami's lap. Yami stroked his hair with the same gentleness I'd seen earlier. "It's simple," Yami said. "I know what it's like to be totally alone, so alone you can't remember ever having been part of anyone. I come over each time because I want you to know I'm here."

Kaiba curled slightly into Yami. "Anyone who talks as much as you do has to be real," he said as he reached up and briefly caressed Yami's cheek. Kaiba closed his eyes and went back to sleep, his head still pillowed on Yami's lap.

I felt a little guilty. It had been too intimate a moment to witness. I pulled off my VR helmet again, glad they hadn't realized my portal was there – or that it was occupied.

I sat back in my chair. Fubeta was gone. It was too early for him to have gone to open the store; he must have been resting next door. I was glad. Quiet as he was, the last thing I wanted to do was talk. I tried to absorb what I'd just seen.

The way they'd looked at each other… the way they'd talked… that kiss…

I couldn't help feeling annoyed that they'd complicated an already-overwhelming situation. I'd been – we'd all been – so focused on winning this game; now a new worry had been added to an overcrowded list. What was going to happen when it was finally time to return home? Had they become so lost in this world that they'd forgotten how impermanent it – and everything that happened in it – was? Why on earth had they picked this moment to act like a couple of stupid kids?

That sobered me, shook me up as thoroughly as a glass of cold water to the face. I paused and caught my breath, suddenly aware I'd been breathing heavily as though I'd been running – instead of sitting in place, worrying.

They _were_ a couple of kids. It was about time they acted like it. I smiled, aware I should still be frowning in concern instead. But they'd looked good together. And I was sure this was the first time either of them had experienced the things they were now experiencing together. I could remember what it was like: discovering someone for the first time… falling in love… feeling like you'd found something unbelievable, something amazing in its newness. I couldn't begrudge them that.

I waited until some time had passed then put the VR helmet on again. Yami was asleep. Kaiba was standing guard. He was fully dressed once again. It was easy to see now… something in his stance went beyond mere vigilance. I didn't expect Kaiba to come over; the cave indicating my presence was small and sunken into the ground, more like a rabbit hole than a cave. I wasn't surprised they'd missed it. But as Kaiba paced in front of Yami, his eyes locked on to the signal rune half hidden by weeds.

"Hello," I said as I appeared in front of him.

Kaiba frowned, as if I'd been the one to interrupt him. He may have summoned me, but he was in no hurry to break the silence that stretched between us.

"I didn't expect you to be here," he said finally.

"I am," I answered, feeling awkward stating something so obvious.

He nodded. "I spoke to Noa," he said. "Mokuba and Yugi are in a safe house. They're okay."

"I know. I saw them. Thank you for telling me."

There was another uncomfortable silence. I suddenly remembered Fubeta's message and delivered it.

Kaiba frowned. "I'm sure Fubeta's as efficient as usual." He paused. "I wasn't sure why you bothered trying to get in touch with us if you already knew Yugi was safe. But that's why, isn't it? You promised to deliver his message? Thank you," he said, his voice flat and business like.

"No. Fubeta's message was an after-thought. I was already looking for you. I wanted to see how you two were doing."

Kaiba nodded curtly. "Yeah, Yami's bailed Yugi out a few times. I get it. Of course you'd feel an obligation."

"He has. But gratitude and affection are two different things. Is it so hard to believe I feel both? That I'm here instead of home and in bed because I actually care about you?"

His frown deepened to a scowl. I suddenly thought of the little boy from my dream announcing, "That's the kind of bullshit thing people say." I looked at Kaiba and suddenly wondered: had he been in my dream, or had I been in his?

Kaiba went back to pacing; his movements were too deliberate to be aimless, but too purposeless to be anything else. The glimpse I caught of his face told me nothing. I sighed. If he was in a relationship for the first time, the emotional upheaval must be enormous, especially since I had no doubt that he was hiding as much of it as he could, even (or especially) from his partner. I doubted though, that he had summoned me for a little relationship advice. I hid a smile at the thought.

But however unwilling he was to talk, he _had_ called me here. He must have wanted something – even if neither of us had a clue what. Yugi had said that Kaiba had created this game because he wanted to change. He'd designed it better than he'd known. As uncomfortable as it was for Kaiba, he was reaching out to people… to Yami… even to me.

"How are you?" I asked.

"Fine," he snapped.

I sighed again, feeling as useless as the title over my head proclaimed.

"I'm curious about my title," I said, hoping a change of subject would get him to talk, or at least to stop pacing. Although I couldn't see them, I knew the words "Senile Keeper of Useless Trivia" were hanging over my head.

"It was a toss-up between that and 'Annoying Old Fart.' I was feeling polite," Kaiba answered.

"I assume you're going to change the titles before you release it?"

Kaiba nodded. "Why? Does it bother you? Hits too close to home?"

"I said I was curious, not bothered."

"About what?"

"This," I said, spinning so my robes flew out around me, so Kaiba could see the fraying hem of the sleeves, the hole in the back where a boot had torn its way through the worn material, the minute darn under the arm. "I've sold every kid's video game ever made. The level of detail on this one is astonishing… the amount of thought that went into each and every one of those details is even more impressive." I pretended not to notice the slight flush (was it of pleasure?) on Kaiba's thin cheekbones. "Why spend that much time and effort only to make fun of your characters?"

"Because they're not my characters, they're my constraints," Kaiba said, suddenly passionate. "They're worse than useless. They're avatars of illusions. NPCs aren't here because I want or need or believe in them, but because they make the product more commercial. They're the lies everyone wants to believe too badly to notice they're false: that someone will always be there for you; that help is on the way. I'm a businessman. NPCs are a convention. I supply them. This game is a fantasy. NPCs make it a lie."

"Nothing has changed for you?" I asked.

"I know what you want me to say," Kaiba yelled. "Yugi and Yami have stood tough… tougher than me. Is that what you want to hear? You expect everything in my life to change because I met two people? It's a drop in the desert."

"I'm hoping it will be drops on stone," I said.

"Wearing me down, you mean? Fat chance," he spat out as he stood, towering over me.

I bit back a smile. He was such a stubborn child. "If you truly feel that way… if you weren't looking for all the things you make fun of with your titles – friendship, trust, healing… why create this game in the first place?"

"And we can all see what a winner of an idea that was," he said, waving his hand at the landscape around us.

"It's never a mistake to grow," I said.

"I am grown, as you put it," he said icily.

"It's not about age. I'm far older than you, and I still hope I'm capable of growth." I took one look at the smirk on Kaiba's face, and rushed to add, "I'm not talking about height either."

Kaiba snorted. Kaiba had been standing stiffly, his arms folded across against his chest; he'd leaned slightly further back with each exchange. While it would be too much to say he relaxed as he gave a bark of laughter and exhaled, his shoulders did ease up a bit.

"I wasn't looking for anything as vague as growth. Yugi and Yami kept talking about the power of friendship… of trust…. It's laughable. People are out for themselves. Expecting anyone to care is stupid."

It was my turn to pause. I did care. But I also understood why it was all so difficult for Kaiba. After all, when I'd first met him again in this game, all I'd wanted to know was whether he was a threat to Yugi. Even when I'd believed him sincere, I'd wanted him to get a handle on his demons because that would ensure my grandson's safety.

I'd cheered on Yugi and his friends when they'd gone to rescue Kaiba in the first virtual world he'd been trapped in – but I'd never thought about what it must have been like for a 16 year old boy to find himself betrayed by the adults in his life, to be tied up and waiting for death, not even knowing if his beloved brother was safe. Kaiba had tried to kill me; there'd been no reason for me to care about him. But I'd known his age. And now that I knew him a little better, what happened to him mattered. But I couldn't blame him for doubting. My dream – our dream – had been just that. He wasn't my child. He wasn't anyone's child.

For once, Kaiba was the one to rescue me from my own thoughts. He'd apparently been too lost in his own to even notice my abstraction.

"But they kept winning. They had to be right. And if they were… if the power of unity is even stronger than the power of self-reliance… if trying to hang on to everything is even more powerful than being willing to sacrifice it all… I have to know. You asked me why I built this game? I came into it looking for strength. I have to be the kind of brother Mokuba deserves."

"And what do you want for yourself, son?" I asked, holding my breath as I waited to see if he would answer. Kaiba glared and turned away. He paced the ground, then came back to face me.

"I want a future," he said through gritted teeth. "But I don't see strength in this road." His voice dropped to a whisper; maybe he was half-hoping I wouldn't hear. "Sometimes all I see is weakness."

There was a chance he'd stalk away again or get angry if I answered. But I couldn't ignore the unspoken plea for reassurance behind his words.

"I disagree. What could be stronger than being willing to look at yourself and change? Than facing your fears and going forward anyway?" I asked.

Kaiba's lips tightened until they were a thin line. He looked even more defenseless being complimented for strength than he had when confessing his fears of weakness. I could have groaned as I saw my form start to flicker. Kaiba had extended the limited time NPCs could interact with them; it was almost up. Kaiba looked relieved; he was probably hoping I would disappear before he had to come up with an answer.

"I have to leave for now," I said. "But as long as I can, whenever I can, I'll be here for both of you and Yami, any time you want to talk."

Kaiba's serious face and brief nod were the last things I saw before vanishing.

* * *

 _**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter.** _

**ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:** A while back, Bnomiko had this awesome plot bunny that involved Sugoroku adopting Seto and Mokuba as children. The idea stuck in the back of my head and wound up here incorporated in the dream sequence in this chapter.

When I was link-surfing on tvtropes I saw one of their tabs was Obi-wannabees – which was just too good a phrase to resist borrowing.

 _ **Thanks to Indigo**_ for typo-catching. I made the corrections when I posted this chapter.

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** One thing that strikes me when Kaiba makes it clear that he believes people can't be trusted is how accurately he's describing most of his life. Of all the types of trust, I think trusting adults to look out for him would be the most difficult for Kaiba, since this is the one most directly contradicted by his experience – and insisting that he is the only person he's willing to trust with his interests has helped him get where he is, in both good and bad ways.

I find Kaiba and Sugoroku interesting in an irresistible force meets the immovable object kind of way. From the beginning of Yu-Gi-Oh! even when Sugoroku refers to Kaiba as a terrible boy, he seems aware that Kaiba _is_ a teen-aged boy. At the same time, he's the only character, besides Kaiba who has the experience of raising a child. But as much as I like the idea of Sugoroku and Kaiba getting to know each other, I also find it bittersweet, because it highlights how much Kaiba has missed out on growing up.

 _As always, comments would be adored…_


	34. Dark Crisis

_Pick up a children's sports story – preferably one trying for an uplifting message – and some time, somewhere, someone will remind the hot dog star player that there's no "I" in team. But laudable as this platitude is, is it accurate as well?_

_Think of any sport – from quidditch to basketball – that involves a team and a ball. Now think of how that ball moves from player to player, avoiding the opposing team… how each member does his or her part in speeding it towards the goal._

_But regardless of how many players touch the ball along the way, only one can score._

_It took a cowardly lion, a tin man and a scarecrow to get Dorothy into a witch's castle and out of its locked rooms. But (although I'll never understand why a meltable witch would keep buckets of water lying around) at the end of the day, Dorothy had to face her nemesis on her own. Perhaps the most delicate part of unity is knowing when your teammates need to figure things out for themselves._

**MOKUBA'S NARRATIVE**

The last safe house had been a charred ruin. This one looked like a mobster's hideaway – after a shootout with a rival gang. It was nondescript shack except for the kicked in door and broken windows… and the bullet holes. We had to duck under police tape to get in. The floor was covered with glass and the bullets had buried themselves in the plaster-board walls. The only other decoration (besides the blood smears) were the chalk outlines on the floor.

Yugi seemed oblivious. As soon as we entered the safe house he found Anzu's portal. He hesitated, then walked past it and went to summon his grandfather. Sugoroku appeared, grinning from ear to ear.

"So how's Nisama?" I asked, getting to the important stuff once they'd stopped hugging.

"They're fine," he said. His face looked a little funny though. I waited a moment but he didn't add anything. I thought about that. Sugoroku was cool, but there's a lot of people who think lying to kids is a nice thing to do.

I waited a bit more while he and Yugi talked about our time here and Yugi reassured him a dozen times that we were fine. When they paused for breath I broke in before they could start hugging again.

"They're getting along, aren't they?" I pressed.

"Extremely well," he answered. He looked like he was trying not to laugh. I guess that meant they were probably fighting, but there was no danger of them actually killing each other.

"See, Mokuba, I told you they'd make out just fine without us," Yugi reminded me.

Sugoroku started coughing. I hoped he wasn't getting a cold in the world outside, then paused, shocked at how close I'd come to forgetting that there _was_ a world outside. Somehow, it seemed like we'd been here forever.

Maybe in a way I had. After all, it was one of my brother's games. Of course it felt like home.

Yugi and Sugoroku went back to talking. Sugoroku was giving him all the news from the game store and their block. I'd never realized how many people Yugi knew – or cared about. I hoped they'd keep talking though – anything to put off the moment when Jounouchi showed up and got a good look at the décor. He still thought of my brother as the guy who'd tried to kill him at Death-T; he probably figured my brother deserved to end up as a chalk outline on the floor. The thing was… I knew how my brother felt about those weapons he designed. For all the wrong reasons, he agreed with Jounouchi's estimate of him more than either of them could have imagined.

I looked around again and swallowed. My brother didn't believe in safe houses. I knew that. I'd assumed he'd just used generic horror/shoot 'em up movie sets when he created them. But as I stared at the chalk outline under my feet, I couldn't help wondering if something more personal was going on. If we ever came across a safe house that looked like the mansion back when it had been Gozaburo's, I was going to flat out refuse to enter.

Of course, as soon as I thought that, my brother's bedroom – the one he'd had before he'd beaten Gozaburo – appeared right in front of me. There were 100 duel monsters cards lined up on the floor in ten rows of ten.

Most kids get games or books or even clothes on their birthday. We'd each gotten 2% of Kaiba Corporation. Then Gozaburo had given Nisama a stack of money and a threat: he had to increase it 100 times over or he'd owe the rest of his life to the bastard. They both knew what Gozaburo was demanding was impossible. But that wasn't going to stop Nisama. This was his chance to take that man down, once and for all – at least we thought it'd be for good.

My brother had explained it all as he laid the duel monsters cards across the floor. He didn't need to pay any attention to Gozaburo's challenge – not if he could take over Kaiba Corporation itself. Business was just like a game. Each percentage of stock was like a card. The first one to turn over 51 cards won.

Before the mansion, games had meant something different. They'd been fun. Now my brother looked like he'd died a week ago and someone had forgotten to bury him.

Yugi's grandfather and even Yugi had disappeared. I was still in the safe house; I knew that. No challenge, no enemy could reach in here and get me. But it seemed like my memories weren't held back by the door and the scene in front of me blocked everything else out.

Nisama had spent a week in his room studying, only stopping when he wanted to talk to Lector, the henchman that Gozaburo had loaned him. Then one afternoon they'd both gone out. They'd come home a few hours later. Nisama had dismissed his – or Gozaburo's – flunkey with a smirk. He'd waited until the door had closed before saying, "A sense of honor might be the greatest weakness of all. Never forget that, Mokuba."

I didn't point out that he was doing all this so my adoptive father couldn't use his designs to kill people. I thought that took a sense of honor, but if Nisama thought that was bad…

At first I'd thought that winning was going to be a breeze. Nisama had gotten the Big Five on his side; they'd signed their shares over to him; they'd set out to buy up the rest. My brother had done whatever he'd had to, to keep the money flowing. He hadn't said what and I hadn't asked.

"We're going to win!" I told him each time we turned a card over. The smile on my brother's face grew so bitter it hurt to look at him, but was a smile nonetheless. When we hit the mid-thirties he stopped smiling.

I could see Nisama standing in the middle of the room staring at the cards like they'd betrayed him. He shook his head. We were alone. It was hard to tell if he was talking to me or the cards themselves.

"You don't know what I've done… how many lives I've ruined, all for this chance. I can't lose. I can't. I have to stop him."

"You will!" I assured him.

He shook his head again. "Think, Mokuba… how long do you think it'll be before one of those hyenas runs back to Gozaburo and sells me out, if they haven't already? You think I can trust those lying sacks of shit?"

"You can trust me. Always!" I said.

"You don't get it. That's not the point. _He_ says…" Nisama snapped his lips shut.

I knew what Gozaburo said: that I was a weakling who was holding my brother back.

Nisama kept pacing and talking as if I wasn't there. "I can probably control when he finds out. It wouldn't take much to goad his flunkey into telling him – assuming that wasn't part of the son of a bitch's plan in lending him to me in the first place. I bet Gozaburo lets me get up to 49% just so he can rub his victory in my face. Getting those last two percent… that's the last nut to crack. Then I'll be the one in charge."

"I'll do anything to help you. Anything!" I yelled.

A gleam came into his eye; he gave me a quick, cold, speculative glance as if he was weighing some odds that only he could see. But contradictory as it sounds, for the first time in days he looked hopeful.

"Anything," I repeated. For once, I was the one making a promise to him.

My brother showed fear so rarely that it was terrifying to see it sneak into his eyes.

"No! Get out!" he ordered in a voice made of ice. "Go outside and play. That's an order."

I ran out of the room. I hadn't understood at the time. I did now. The only time he ever pushed me away was when he was afraid he was the biggest threat in the house.

The scene faded away. I was standing in the dingy safe house. Sugoroku and Yugi were hugging again. Sugoroku turned to smile at me. Neither of them looked worried so I couldn't have been out of it for that long.

"How are you, son?" Sugoroku asked.

I shrugged. "Fine. I miss Nisama."

"He misses you too."

I smiled. I liked Sugoroku. Given everything we'd done to him, I wouldn't have blamed him if he hated us but he'd always encouraged Yugi and the rest to help.

"Don't worry," he added. "I have faith in all of you." He looked at Yugi. "I have to go. Your friends will be here soon."

In theory, Sugoroku could have hung out with us all day since we were in a safe house, but in practice it didn't work out like that. The circuitry had never been designed to handle such an extended interface with the real world, and if it got fried nobody but my brother could fix it.

Since we had a little time before we could use the NPC function again, we swept up the broken glass. We found an undamaged table and a few chairs and dragged them to the main room as if that would make the place look more welcoming. It was pretty much of a lost cause though.

I wasn't surprised when Jounouchi took a good look around the instant Yugi summoned him and said, "What a dump. This dive is even worse than the last one. It's a good thing your brother's a computer geek and not an interior decorator."

I glared at him. "You're not smart enough to make a virtual world," I said.

"Yeah, but I'm not dumb enough to get stuck in one either. And even you, kid, got to admit his idea of home decorating sucks."

"So does his sense of humor," Anzu added, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

"Tell me about it!" Honda said as he appeared next to her.

At least the voice was Honda's. Pegasus must have finally finished another NPC for him. It was the first time I'd seen him. Jounouchi, Anzu and Sugoroku had all looked like themselves in different costumes. This new NPC was different. It wasn't tall or short or fat or thin. Honda's face had always been pretty average, but this wasn't ordinary – it was totally forgettable. Eyes, nose, mouth, even his hair… I knew the minute I turned away I'd forget it all. The words over his head read, "Generic Sidekick." I thought Anzu looked great, even if I got embarrassed every time I saw her, and Sugoroku's outfit wasn't bad, but any way you looked at it, bland as it was, Honda's avatar beat Jounouchi's dog get-up by a mile.

"Pegasus tried to customize the NPC. He couldn't. But at least he rigged it up so I can use it and meet up with you guys," Honda said.

Yugi jumped up and hugged him. "It's great to see you!"

"Yeah! The team supreme is together again!" Jounouchi yelled. "Even if we're stuck in a place that looks like it came out of a straight-to-DVD mobster movie." He saw me glaring, laughed, raised his hands in surrender and said, "I never said he wasn't a genius." I stared at him in shock. He'd actually complimented my brother. Then, of course, he ruined it by adding, "But he has no idea how to hang out."

The fact he was right didn't make me any less annoyed.

"Hey kid, how're you doing?" Honda asked.

That reminded me – I'd promised Yami I'd thank Honda as soon as I could for trying to rescue me at Duelists Kingdom.

"I'm fine. Uh… thanks. I just found out that you'd got me out of that dungeon… you know… with Pegasus…" I mumbled.

Honda looked as uncomfortable as me.

"No problem. I mean… you were just a kid. They shouldn't have grabbed you like that. And you know… done all the rest. I wanted to help if I could. Anyway, we're friends right?"

Maybe it was that simple for them.

"Whew!" Jounouchi said, letting out an over-loud breath. "If all that mushy stuff is settled…"

"Jounouchi!" Anzu yelled.

Jounouchi grinned at her, then turned to Yugi and asked, "Well, as long as we're here… want to duel?"

I stared at him like he was crazy but Yugi smiled so wide he could have been a toothpaste ad, and yelled, "Sure! You have no idea how much I'd love to play just for fun!"

Yugi and Jounouchi went to the table and pulled up a couple of chairs. Jounouchi sat backwards on his, and leaned his arms on the chair back. He kept tipping it forward until the back of the chair hit the table, which made it tilt backwards until all four legs landed on the floor with a crash. Then he'd lean forwards again. Anzu was on one side of the table cheering Yugi on. Honda was on the other, telling Jounouchi he hoped he broke his neck when the chair finally gave out.

I could almost see the linoleum tiles and flat, dull walls of their classroom. For a moment the table looked like a school desk. I bet they hung out like this every day at recess. It looked like fun. When we got back, I wondered if I could get Nisama to make the principal skip me a few grades so I could join them.

Nisama had set it up so that people could duel in the safe houses but the results wouldn't have any consequences. Jounouchi was lucky. If this had been for real he would have been dead meat. The game wasn't exactly what you'd call suspenseful. I'd never seen Yugi duel before, except for that duel on the pier with Jounouchi. He was good. I watched them, trying to memorize Yugi's cards and the order he played them – at least until I got somewhere private or Yugi fell asleep and I could record and save the data. If Yugi and Yami really were separate, Nisama was going to want it.

After he beat Jounouchi, Yugi took on Honda and then Honda and Jounouchi together. Jounouchi suggested that Anzu join them. That's when I made my counter offer: Yugi and Anzu as a team against Honda and Jounouchi. Yugi blushed. So did Anzu. I can't believe Yugi hadn't thought of something that obvious on his own. Some strategist.

They left after the game and we went to bed. The beds were surprisingly clean and blood-free. The next day was a repeat, except Yugi suggested a tag team right duel from the start. At least he was learning. The next morning came quickly. It was time to go.

I wasn't surprised by the scene that was waiting for us the moment we slammed the door behind us. I'd been thinking about it after all.

We walked out of the safe house right into the mansion… into Nisama's old room to be exact. There were still 100 duel monsters cards on the floor, still in the same ten neat rows. Except now there were thirty-eight cards face up. The rest remained stubbornly face down. We hadn't turned a card over in ages.

Nisama turned to me. His face was wilder than I'd ever seen it before and more determined. He hadn't looked like this… not even when Gozaburo had beaten him while I hid under his desk, not even when he'd gone on trips with me after Gozaburo had checked up on him the night before and we'd both pretended the blood that sometimes seeped through the back of his shirt was invisible. He opened his mouth and shut it. The Big Five stood behind him, like attack dogs being held back. Gozaburo had taken Seto on a fox hunt the last time they'd been in England. Seto hadn't described it to me. Gozaburo had.

I was staring at one of the worst days of my life.

"Mokuba?" Yugi asked.

"You can see this too?" I whispered – not that anyone in front of us showed any sign of even knowing we were there.

"What's going on? This looks like what happened in Noa's World."

I'd forgotten Yugi knew all about it.

"It is," I answered.

"Wow, you guys look so young," he said.

If I'd thought Nisama's eyes looked crazy when I'd walked into the room, they looked ten times worse now. It was strange. I could see myself, or a younger version anyway – but it felt like I was there. Even knowing we were going to be okay in the end, I still felt as lost and lonely and scared as I'd been then.

"Mokuba!" Nisama barked.

"Nisama?" I asked.

"He said you were holding me back. He laughed at me for holding on to you. He was right."

"Nisama… please…" I begged.

"Ten days… I haven't been able to flip over a single card. There's only one answer. Gozaburo has to know. That leaves only one question. How did he find out?" His eyes turned as hard as glass and as brittle. "You betrayed me."

As I stared at him he yelled, "Don't deny it!"

I opened my mouth to protest, then shut it except to say his name again. I didn't know what was going on or why my brother was so mad at me. He had to know I would never turn against him. But he'd told me not to deny anything and I'd never violated a direct order from my brother. I didn't now.

I watched my own stunned face as my brother hit me. The cards flew all over the floor as I hit the ground. He picked me up and threw me out of the room. I ran off down the hall, literally bumping into Gozaburo. For once he hadn't yelled or threatened. He'd put his arm around me instead. It had been suffocating.

"You don't have a choice left but to switch sides do you?" Gozaburo asked. "Seto seems to have decided he doesn't have a brother. I knew it would happen sooner or later. It's lucky you still have a father, isn't it?"

He walked off down the hall together. I was still crying. Gozaburo was smiling.

I'd never seen what happened after that before. But suddenly I was back in Nisama's old bedroom. Nisama was collecting the scattered cards and carefully putting them back in place. Even after he finished, he just knelt there staring at them. He was alone, but his face was as blank and expressionless as if Gozaburo was there in the room with him.

"I didn't know…" Yugi said.

"What? Who my brother is? How I can still love him?" I challenged.

"No. I've known both those things ever since Duelists Kingdom. But I never knew the cost even when it stared me in the face every day I was with him."

"Well, it all worked out," I said. I knew I sounded like I was on the defense. I frowned. That was something my brother had never believed in.

"Did it?" Yugi said, sweeping his arm towards my brother, who was still staring at the cards on the floor. "I've seen your brother duel; I was part of almost every duel we fought against him – and that's your brother's biggest flaw. He never counts the cost of his attacks."

"Why bother counting when he's going to pay it anyway?" I said.

The mechanical chime on my brother's computer announced the arrival of a new email. Nisama rose to his feet, looking more tired than I ever remember, even when he'd stayed up all night. He went to the desk, checked his computer, then walked slowly back to the cards on the floor. He knelt down and turned the 39th face up. He bowed his head across his knees. His shoulders shook. I couldn't see his face.

"What just happened?" Yugi asked.

"Nisama's plan came together," I answered.

It was all I could do to keep from running to Nisama and letting him know he was going to win. I'd forgotten about Yugi until he rushed past me.

"Kaiba!" he yelled.

Something bad was coming. I knew it. I was ready. As soon as Yugi got close, my brother morphed into a duel monster, the Nameless Warrior of Evil. Yugi jumped back, but his foot slipped and he fell to the floor. The monster moved in for the kill. He raised his right arm. The thin, curved blade that was bonded to his wrist was poised to strike. His golden eyes burned as if his soul was on fire.

I called in a bow and arrows. I remembered picking my weapons out with my brother back at home and laughing as I added them to my inventory. I wasn't going to trust this to a duel monster. I wasn't going to hit the Nameless Warrior or even come close. All I had to do was distract him long enough for Yugi to get to safety.

My shot was way off but the monster's eyes tracked the arrow just like I knew they would. Yugi scrambled to his feet and ran to join me. We raced through the door to the hallway. But as we slammed it shut the door dissolved and we were back in Nisama's bedroom.

"We can't run away from illusions. That's not your brother. No matter what he did, I don't believe Kaiba is a monster and neither do you. It can't be him," Yugi insisted.

"This isn't about what I believe," I yelled, but Yugi moved faster than I'd expected. Somehow, I'd managed to forget not just what a good duelist he was, but how decisive he could be. He called in Summoned Skull. The Nameless Warrior of Evil was tall, as tall as my brother – but Summoned Skull filled the room. He looked like an unearthly executioner as he swept out an axe and charged. His stroke was too fast to be clean, but it got the job done. The Nameless Warrior's head stayed on, but Summoned Skull's attack cut the artery in his neck. With his cold gray-green skin, I'd thought he was made of stone or was some kind of undead thing. I was wrong. Blood sprayed everywhere. It soaked the rug and the duel monsters cards that were still staring face up as though they were watching the fight. His eyes widened in shock. He fell, face first, on the ground.

The ornate gold and purple shirt and dark blue pants reformed into a school uniform – the kind Nisama had worn all through that last year with Gozaburo… right up until Death-T. The Nameless Warrior's horns shrunk and disappeared into mahogany brown hair. His skin turned faintly pink and then white. I stared at my brother's now-bloodless profile, at the blood pooling under him. I watched as it started spreading across the rug. I didn't know whether to be relieved or feel worse when his body disappeared.

"It's not your brother. You know that. It's just the game messing with our heads," Yugi said, but his voice was shaking.

"You can't know that. This is his game. How do you know this isn't part of him?" I waved towards the bloodstained cards on the floor. "I'm damn sure he felt like a monster that day."

"The one thing I do know is that I promised your brother I'd protect you. And I'd do it again."

"Who's not counting costs or looking for other solutions, now?" I jeered.

"Oh shit… I think we just ran out of time…" Yugi said, his eyes impossibly wide.

I whirled around to see what he was starring at. A half dozen more versions of my brother appeared. They were all different heights and ages from younger than me to the one I'd come into this game with. It was like seeing my brother's whole life. As I watched, they flickered and suddenly we were facing six identical copies of the Wicked Worm Beast.

They didn't have eyes, just empty sockets, except for the tentacle poking out of each monster's right eye. But they seemed to know where we were anyway. They slithered across the room, moving with deliberate slowness to surround and close in on us. I played Block Attack. That froze them in their tracks, but it only lasted a moment. And we could only carry seven cards into any challenge. We'd each just used one.

"How many cards do you have that can block an attack?" I said urgently to Yugi.

"Not enough to do any good," he answered.

"Well, I'm not killing them," I said.

"No. I agree," Yugi answered. His voice sounded funny, like the Wicked Worm Beast had creeped him out even more than the rest of this horror show, but since he was doing what I wanted, I didn't waste any time worrying about it.

"We need to slow them down so we can think," Yugi said as he called in his spray canister and poppy potion. I'd seen him use it before. It put anything to sleep. But I'd never seen it in action against anything the Wicked Worm Beast's size.

It worked but we both knew it wouldn't last long.

I had Pot of Greed. I could call up two cards, but I could only think of one that I wanted. I used Swords of Revealing Light. Golden cords immediately wrapped themselves around the sleeping monsters, binding them tightly. Even if they woke up, they wouldn't be able to move.

"We can't keep doing this," Yugi said.

"This'll stop them for a while. Quick! Run!" I said.

"No," Yugi said. His voice was firm… almost angry, or as mad as Yugi could sound, anyway.

"It might work," I said.

"It won't. People used to call me weak because I didn't want to fight and wasn't any good at it. They laughed at me because they could bully me and beat me up and I couldn't stop them. But I never ran. Not once. You can't run from a challenge. It'll just follow us wherever we go."

I looked nervously at the identical monsters. They were starting to wake up.

"We need to know what's in front of us – your brother or random computer generated monsters or our own fears," Yugi said.

I turned from the monsters to stare at Yugi. I'd finally put my finger on what was odd about the whole fight. Before I could say anything, Yugi played his own Pot of Greed. He called up Inzektor Luciol. The slim monster looked human but it was hard to tell because he was, as always, surrounded by the hazy images of countless duel monster cards. We couldn't see him, but he could tell us the attributes of the monsters facing us.

But as soon as Yugi put Inzektor Luciol into play, everything – the duel monsters, even the mansion – disappeared. We were back facing the safe house. Just like with the last one it exploded in front of our eyes. We'd been standing closer this time. The force of the blast knocked us to the floor.

"What in the world…" Yugi said as he got up and dusted off his clothes.

I shook my head. "I think we had the wrong idea from the beginning."

"What do you mean?" Yugi asked.

"Well, these challenges are about facing your fears, right? I'm not afraid of my brother turning into a monster. But this is his game, right? Maybe he doesn't know that."

"Then this challenge is going to keep coming back," Yugi said. He stopped short. "Like the Wicked Worm Beast…"

"Huh?" I asked.

"The Wicked Worm Beast. He keeps popping up and attacking your brother. We have no idea why. Your brother kept insisting it's a computer glitch."

"My brother's being stalked by a crappy three-star monster he hasn't even bothered to keep in his deck for years?" I rolled my eyes.

Yugi grinned. "Yeah, that was pretty much his reaction, too."

I tuned to leave but Yugi was still staring at the burned spot where the safe house had been. He was looking serious again.

"When I first really became friends with Jounouchi and Honda… there was this guy picking on them. I couldn't do anything about it – except get beat up too. I wanted to be strong so I could make everything all right. But it's not that simple," he said.

I thought about what Yugi had said earlier. "Well, if this challenge comes back, at least that'll give us some time to figure out how to beat it once and for all."

Yugi surprised me by shaking his head. "We're not the ones who have to find the answer."

* * *

**ANZU'S NARRATIVE**

It had been a strange 24 hours. We'd spent yesterday, when the equipment allowed it, visiting Yugi and Mokuba at their latest wreck of a safe house. They'd had to leave by morning, but my next portal wasn't too far away and they'd reached it by sunset. Mokuba had pointed out that Yugi was always the first to find _my_ portal, looking at me like he expected me to jump into Yugi's arms and squeak, "My hero!" Yugi had blushed and looked down.

That was the thing with Yugi. Anyone else would have snapped at Mokuba to shut up. Yugi was too nice. He'd rather deal with being embarrassed than hurt Mokuba's feelings, when the kid so obviously proud of himself for trying to help – and thought he was being so subtle. I wondered, since they were in a video game, if being sweet and decent counted as a super power. On second thought, since Kaiba had designed the game, probably not. But maybe it should count as being special more often than it did, and not just in a game.

I'd seen Yami too… and Kaiba. They hadn't seen me.

That's why I was running to Pegasus. The boys agreed with me that it was important to keep an eye on him. Luckily they weren't too observant.

I never would have thought it, considering all the awful things he'd done to us, but I liked Pegasus. It wasn't even like he'd changed – he was still his usual over the top annoying self, but he'd managed to worm his way into my sympathies. He really was still mourning the loss of his wife. Sometimes when he stared at her portrait I expected her to walk right out of the frame.

I'd always thought I was smarter than the girls in my class, the way they sighed over cheesy romances – but it turned out I was just as sappy. There was something beautiful about his undying love for her. It's funny but seeing how she was still alive to him, seeing how we were the ghosts, had been the one thing to finally make me admit: what I felt for Yami was a crush, not everlasting love.

Yami and Kaiba had been marching through waist-high weeds. At least they'd been waist-high on Kaiba. They came up to Yami's shoulders. It would have been adorable except for what happened next. Kaiba had stopped to wait for Yami.

Kaiba had smirked and yelled, "It's a shame your height matches your intellect and not your ego, shrimp."

"It's a shame your victories fall a bit short of your height," Yami taunted as he caught up to Kaiba.

Kaiba being an asshole was expected. Yami grabbing and kissing him… the two of them forgetting their surroundings, forgetting everything but each other… wasn't – at least not by me. And it hurt.

Before, I'd gone to see Pegasus to check up on him or because he was painting my portrait. Today I needed to. It wasn't something I could say to Sugoroku since it kind of concerned his grandson and the boys were hopeless. Odd as it was, Pegasus was safe.

"You told me once that I'd lost my love," I blurted out as I barged into his office. "I thought you were just trying to annoy me. How'd you know?"

Pegasus didn't try to pretend ignorance. He didn't make me explain. As much as he liked taunting people, he could be unexpectedly nice.

"I watched them duel," he said quietly.

"So did I. I was on the sidelines at every one of Yugi's duels, cheering them on."

"You might have been there, but you didn't see. No one existed for Kaiba or Yami but each other. If you didn't call out to him with Yugi's name at the end of each duel, they might still be there staring at each other forever."

"Do you know how many times I've heard Yami say he'd never forgive Kaiba?" I insisted.

"But he always does. It seems the only thing he can't forgive is anyone hurting him. He was furious with me for trying." He paused and studied me as intently as if he was still painting my portrait. "How did you find out?"

"I was waiting by a portal, hoping someone would walk by. They did. They didn't even notice that the signal to call me was there."

"Rude awakenings are the worst kind."

"I never thought anything would happen between us… not really. He's this magical spirit. And how do you ask a pharaoh on a date, anyway?" I frowned and swallowed hard before saying the thing I'd come to his office to say. "I figured he couldn't want anyone… not like that… not the way I wanted him. I was wrong. He feels everything I hoped he could – he just doesn't feel it for me."

I blinked back my tears, then let them fall. Pegasus was a good person to cry in front of. He hugged me. Sobbing into the soft silk of his suit felt good. I sniffed and step back.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"So am I, little apricot girl," he said gently.

"I meant for crying on your suit."

"Ah, my poor, unworthy suit is honored to have a pretty girl shed tears all over it."

"Silly!" I said still sniffling. Then I shook my head. "I feel so stupid."

"Loving someone is never stupid," he said. "Or maybe it always is. I get those two mixed up."

"I saw Yugi, too. Later," I said.

"And…"

"Mokuba's fine too," I said, stalling.

"Of course Mokuba's fine." He laughed. "Like the cockroach, that boy can survive anything."

I glared at Pegasus. "He's just a child. I'm glad he isn't scared."

Pegasus snorted. "Some child. He managed to outmaneuver me and my staff. In his next adventure, he held off his brother's treacherous Board of Directors long enough to convince you young heroes to save his Nisama from a virtual world – something that seems to be becoming quite a habit for Kaiba-boy. Then Mokuba topped it all off by talking his brother into accepting being rescued – probably the biggest hurdle of all."

He shook his head and held the back of his hand up to his forehead with a theatrical sigh. "And you call him a defenseless child… please, don't make me laugh. If reincarnation exists – which it seems to – I want to come back as an impossibly cherubic ten year old. I could get away with murder and all anyone would say is 'poor dear.'"

I couldn't help it. I laughed. Childish as Pegasus was being, he made me feel better. And it made it easier for me to mumble, "Yugi told me I was beautiful."

"What did you say in return?" Pegasus asked.

"He's on a life or death mission in some nightmare world. Did you think I was going to shoot him down? I said, 'Thanks.' He blushed."

Pegasus laughed.

"It's not funny! There was this ruin behind us. The sun was setting behind us. Then Yugi told me I was beautiful. It was sweet."

"And so the flight into reality begins…"

I didn't pretend I didn't know what he was talking about. "It was silly of me, but I'd hoped Yami…"

"You have a choice, apricot girl. You can go on hoping. Hopes are not bound by sanity."

"No. I can't. He called me his true friend, once. If that's all I am, it's what I'm going to live up to."

"Delusions… madness… those are the things that feed the soul. How prosaic of you to prefer reality. Well… to each his own."

* * *

.

_**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter and helping me sort the events in it out.** _

**Acknowledgement:** Thanks to Splintered Star for helping me get organized.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Okay, I have to admit that thinking up avatars for Yugi's friends is a lot of fun. I actually like Honda a lot, but I couldn't resist having his NPC be this kind of generic friend.

**Anzu note:** In a series filled with magical artifacts and reincarnation I've always liked the way Anzu and Honda are so down to earth – sort of the everyman and everywoman of the series. I love the scene in the manga where Anzu goes on a date with Yugi and schemes to have Yami appear because she'd rather be with him. I admit that it's not a scene that shows her at her best. But let's face it, if going out with someone you may not be all that interested in so you can get closer to the person you have a crush on is a fault (which it is), it's also a fault that a lot more people than Anzu have been guilty of. I think it says a lot for Anzu's basic decency and kindness that in a story where trapping kid's souls on playing cards and building theme parks of death is pretty common, Anzu feels really bad about deceiving a friend. And you just know that it's a mistake she'll never make again. So while I think she'd be hurt and upset to find out that the guy she has a crush on likes someone else, I also think wanting to be a good friend would outweigh all other concerns.

**Noa's Arc** : Kaiba's duel with Lector is one of my favorites, and I adore the scene in Kaiba's room where he explains how he's going to take over KC using duel monsters cards and all the subsequent ones that show how that plays out. One thing I find interesting about that sequence is how ambiguous it is. Mokuba insists that his brother didn't betray him because they were a team, but he also says that he wants to help his brother regardless of whether his brother hurt him and he calls the day Seto rejects him one of the worst of his life. Kaiba doesn't deny the accusation that he cold-bloodedly planned the whole thing, but Kaiba rarely denies anything and at the same time he did the only thing that offered Mokuba at least some protection if his plan failed. Given the incredible stress he was under at the time, I think one of the things that might be most damaging about that time is the possibility that Kaiba himself can't parse out what he did or why.

**Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my Live Journal account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated.

_As always, comments would be adored…_


	35. Abyss Rising

**CHAPTER 35: ABYSS RISING**

_Ghosts have been around for as long as there have been people to tell stories about them. But considering how scary the idea of a ghost is, it's surprising how, except for horror movies, they're often helpful sorts, like the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Future. Where would Scrooge be without them to help him sort out his life and priorities before it was too late? And then there's Hamlet. His reunion with the ghost of his beloved father led to a chain of events that ended with his death, not to mention the death of just about everyone else near enough to get stabbed, poisoned or both. Perhaps the moral is that it's best to listen to ghosts in moderation._

**GOZABURO'S NARRATIVE**

I hadn't expected to wait this long to rejoin the world outside. Seto had put the divisions that ran through his character in the gun sights of his game. I'd disabled the safety system and watched him pull the trigger. How had he managed to survive?

He'd fooled me once before, when he'd used his brother as ruthlessly as any other tool to take over my company. I had to make sure he didn't do it again.

I remembered the last time. I'd been waiting in the hallway for Lector's report. Seto had to have known that Lector was my spy. But he'd been forced to use the tool I'd provided. As usual, as soon as I thought about it, I could see the scene before me, breathe in the cigar smoke, note – with the same annoyance – the specks of dust on the red carpet that some servant would get fired for missing. I'd been impressed with Seto's strategy. Side-stepping my challenge to take aim at me was a move worthy of the Kaiba name. But it was time for him to finally learn that only one Kaiba could be the alpha wolf in this pack – and it wasn't a cub like him.

Lector came out of Seto's bedroom. "I think the next scene in our little drama will be soon. I'm supposed to fetch Mokuba and bring him to Seto. The rest of the Big 5 are inside. Seto's taken the bait. He believes that you discovered his plans because Mokuba got careless and let something slip."

I grunted. I never took anything Seto did or said at face value.

Lector chuckled. "Mokuba's been doing our job for us. The little brat's been trying so hard to help and asking so many questions that I'd suspect him myself if I didn't know he was innocent. And Seto's wound so tight, it didn't take much."

I nodded. Lector went to get Mokuba. I went into a room until they passed and Mokuba was ushered into Seto's bedroom. It didn't take long. As soon as the door shut, Seto started yelling. I couldn't make out the individual words through the thick oak door, but the anger and strain in his voice was unmistakable. And actions speak louder than screams. The door swung open. Mokuba flew out. He smashed into the wall and fell to the ground.

"You're lucky I didn't kill you. Get out of my sight and stay far, far away from me," Seto ordered as he slammed the door shut again.

Mokuba crashed into me as he ran down the hall. He was crying too hard to see. I breathed a sigh of relief. The brat wasn't that good an actor. He couldn't fake genuine heartbreak. This wasn't a put up job between the brothers. Mokuba honestly believed his brother hated and had abandoned him.

"It's a good thing you still have a father to take care of you, isn't it?" I asked. I hugged him. I hoped he didn't have fleas.

Mokuba flinched and looked up at me. He was such unpromising material. I wanted to smack his open mouth shut or shove him for looking so scared. I raised my hand then dropped it to his shoulder and patted it comfortingly.

"Forget about Seto. You have me," I said.

Mokuba didn't answer but he followed me obediently enough. I figured that was all that mattered.

Seto was under almost constant surveillance by then. As far as I could tell, Mokuba ceased to exist for Seto the moment he'd thrown him out the door. As little as I trusted Seto, there was a new, stronger coldness to him that suggested it might be real, that I might have finally made a man out of him.

I had Mokuba watched as well, when I wasn't keeping him at my side. He didn't go near his brother in the month that followed. He cried a lot in those first days. I had to restrain mysef from slapping him silly. But he never mentioned his brother's name. Not once. I let Seto acquire 49% of Kaiba Corporation.

It was time for the Board meeting; time to spring my trap. I'd enjoyed it… watching Seto's eyes glaze over as he sat at my boardroom table staring at his defeat. It wasn't until Mokuba walked up to Seto and saved him that I realized: Seto had set this up right from the beginning. He'd played me, but he'd used his brother to do it. It was the quintessential cold-blooded move in an already calculating career. For that one instant, Seto had been whole, just as I'd designed him to be, purposeful and powerful, a true man.

It couldn't last. He couldn't hold onto it. The conflicts in his nature ran too deep; I'd never fully purged them. That was what bit so hard; I'd chosen an irredeemably flawed tool. I could destroy an entire city more easily than the weakness in his character, overthrow an entire government more easily than his sickly devotion to his brother.

I'd expected his weakness to spell his death. But if this game wasn't going to kill him on my schedule, my first priority was goading one of Zorc's little playmates into taking a more direct hand. We could join the game at any time. That option was always before us. I wondered if it was an innate feature of the game or Seto's attempt at getting inside our heads.

It was galling. I couldn't locate Seto, but I could always find Zorc or his henchmen. Each time it was another slap in the face, another reminder that – for the moment at least – Seto had the upper hand. The white-haired kid was malevolent and therefore interesting, but I wouldn't have bothered with him or the washed-up priest, except that Zorc had kept them around for thousands of years. That made detaching them a matter of importance.

I had an advantage. Zorc called himself a god. I didn't believe in gods. But whatever he was, he obviously wasn't human. He didn't understand impatience. And that meant he didn't understand the human tools he'd chosen.

There were three escape pods and four of us. Zorc and I had a tacit agreement: the priest would be the one left behind. But silent agreements aren't worth the paper they're not printed on. And eliminating Zorc instead would be more satisfying and, in the end, more beneficial. I just needed to turn his tools against him… and unlike with Mokuba make sure they stayed on the right side. Whatever Zorc thought, I had no intention of moving back into the world dragging a rival in with me. I'd invited one into my house before.

The kid and the priest were together for once. They weren't talking. Zorc was nowhere in evidence. The priest was praying. He reminded me of the engineers who'd worked under me, the ones who got sick when they saw their handiwork on the six o'clock news. The hacks I'd cut loose and made sure they never worked again. The ones that had potential I'd threatened or coerced. Nobody ever left. Not until I said so.

Except my son. Except Noa.

I shook my head impatiently. Noa had forfeited his right to my interest. And the old priest was just as boring.

It was the kid I wanted to see anyway. He was a better bet. And I've always had a talent for molding the young.

He'd had obviously been trying to find my son. Every time he tried he got bounced to some polar region. It hadn't stopped him from going back over and over again. I looked at the snow brushing his shoulders. Apparently frustration made him stupid.

"Looks like my adoptive son got the better of you. Again," I observed, not bothering to hide my contempt.

His glare was as cold as the ice in his white hair. Unfortunately for him, it made about as effective a weapon.

"Men have died for less," he hissed.

I shrugged. "If you say so. I'm something less than impressed since you're not man enough to go after him yourself."

"The high priest is an annoyance – but the pharaoh is my target. He's the one who murdered my family."

"If Seto was his lap dog back then he was probably involved. He might have been the one to pull the trigger," I said, careful to sound like I didn't care much either way.

The kid frowned at that. "No. He wouldn't have been old… Stop trying to distract me! It won't work. I will wipe the slate clean. I want the pharaoh. I want the man responsible for burning my village."

The old priest chanted a bit more loudly. For a moment he drowned out the kid's words. I'd rather the kid went after my adoptive son, but taking out Seto's ally would be useful as well.

"So what's holding you back? You keep talking about how much you hate this pharaoh, but all you have to do is become a player in this game. Then you could challenge him directly. One simple step and you won't take it. It seems to me that if you were really so determined to kill him…" I let my voice trail off suggestively.

"The game will kill him slowly and painfully. Zorc has decreed it," the kid yelled.

"It's taking its sweet time. And if it can't kill a weakling like my adoptive son, maybe it's time for someone to step in. Someone strong."

"He's not weak," the priest said suddenly.

Both the kid and I turned around and stared at him.

"Seto designed this game to expose his own vulnerabilities. That's not just weak, it's pathetically stupid," I sneered, expecting that to shut up the old fool.

"No."

The word was uncompromising. I was surprised how stern he sounded, like he actually had a backbone.

"No," he continued. "Seto designed this game to show him the right path, to learn to walk it with honor. It takes strength to hold onto integrity."

I didn't answer. Zorc arrived and this wasn't a conversation I wanted to continue in front of him.

Zorc looked at the kid. The ice had melted by now, leaving him slightly damp.

"Stop trying to find them." He said it quietly but there was no doubt it was an order. "I've told you that my plan will work. The game will kill them. Have you lost faith?

I stepped in before Bakura could reaffirm his loyalty, "Maybe we don't want to wait."

"But you will." He wasn't looking at me, but at his two flunkies.

"Why? Because you're a god?" I challenged. "What makes you a god anyway? That you can cause death? Given the world's increase in population since your time, in terms of sheer numbers, I beat you at that long ago."

The priest went back to praying, oblivious to his surroundings again. Zorc and the kid were staring assessingly at each other. I smiled. It was time to leave.

* * *

**KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

We finally stopped for the night, although we couldn't tell if we were still wandering in circles or not. I'd taken to notching trees and scratching rocks to leave a record, getting angrier with each mark I left. We hadn't come across any of them yet, but that meant less than nothing.

"It's okay, Seto," Yami said.

I took a hack at one last tree as we stopped for the night. "What's okay about not having a clue if we're still spinning our wheels or if we're finally headed in the right direction?" I shot back.

Yami smiled. "I trust your game. When we're ready to move forward, we will."

I gritted my teeth. I hated the way Yami had kept cool all day, the way none of this bothered him, the way he kept telling me to have faith – as if faith was an item that could be called up from my inventory along with my weapons. I'd grown up swearing that I'd never believe in anyone but myself – and I'd managed to break that vow.

I turned from Yami, looked around at our home for the night – and started cursing. I couldn't believe it. After all the effort I'd put into making sure none of these freaks could just walk in on us, here one was. It was one more proof – as if I needed it – of just how thoroughly I'd lost control of everything going on around me.

The intruder was dressed like something out of a Mummy movie. He was about as old as Sugoroku, but a lot taller. He had an empty eye socket, but I could see the ghostly flicker of a golden eye. It reminded me of Pegasus. I called in my double kodachi. A short sword appeared in each hand.

"Kaiba! He's unarmed!" Yami called out.

I guess the appearance of lethal weapons signaled a return to my last name.

"That doesn't mean he's not dangerous," I growled.

The old man held up his right hand, palm outward.

"What are you?" I hissed. "You're not any avatar I created. You're not part of the game itself. I designed this game. I know. You have ten seconds – or until you twitch off the spot you're standing on – to explain where the hell you came from and how you found us."

"You know how I got in. The pharaoh brought the Millennium Items into this game. Bakura was hidden inside the Puzzle. He set a beacon. Zorc and I followed. Finding you wasn't difficult. Like Bakura, I'm tied to the Millennium Items. I can sense them even more strongly. And you and I have an older, even more sacred bond."

"Why are you all tied to the Items? What are they?" Yami asked, the longing for certainty tainting his voice.

The old man sighed. "You know what they are. Items of immense power, created through enormous sacrifice."

"Whose sacrifice?" Yami asked.

"Does it matter, except to the damned? From the day of their creation, the Items tainted everyone they touched. They did not spare the innocent."

Yami drew in a breath. "What was my role in all of this?"

"You were the catalyst. Your role befitted your status as pharaoh. You are an agent of fate."

"Did I order a village destroyed?" Yami demanded.

"That is not the way destiny works," he said.

"Was I responsible?" Yami insisted.

"Can one be responsible for the events of one's birth? Yours set things in motion that have not ended even though millennia have passed. It was your birth that led to their creation. But for that my son would have ruled. There would have been no need for any of this."

"Give him a plain answer before I choke it out of you," I growled, moving forward.

"It's okay, Seto," Yami said. "I think I understand. I'm searching for my own answers. It's why I came into the game that first day. He gave me his truth. Now I need to find my own. No answer will quiet my heart unless I find it within myself."

I frowned. This was no time for Yami to go all mystical on me. I turned back to the old guy.

"Your ten seconds are up. Who the hell are you?" I asked.

"I'm Akunadin. Your father."

I moved forward, raising my double swords without realizing it. If he thought claiming paternity was going to soften me up, he had the wrong Seto Kaiba. All it did was warn me he was an enemy and I knew that already.

Yami grabbed one arm. I shook him off. I lowered my blades and vanished one of them so I could reach out and grab Akunadin by the front of his robes.

"My father is dead – both of them," I snarled.

"As am I. You're my son nonetheless. I gave up everything to see that you became the next pharaoh once."

I studied the fine linen of his robes, the gold jewelry. "It looks like you kept quite a bit," I sneered as I pushed him away.

"Don't pretend ignorance. You know what it means to give up _everything_ ," he said.

That got me to look at him again. His one good eye was haunted by darkness.

"I know what it's like to get some of it back, too," I said. At least I hoped I did. I frowned, returning to my main concern. "How did you find us?"

"I wouldn't have been able to find you if I was still part of the game. But once I gave up that protection, once I became a player like you…"

"I thought my adoptive father was waiting for the game to finish us off. What changed?" I interrupted.

"He is still waiting, if impatiently. My master, Zorc decreed it as well. But some things are beyond even a god's control – fatherhood and its obligations, for one. Revenge is probably another. I was the first to take this step – I needed to talk to you directly – but I may not be the last," he warned.

How many more bastards were going to come crawling out of the woodwork claiming to be my father? Now the game had even imported one from ancient Egypt. He seemed par for the course. None of them were able to hang tough, and at least two of them couldn't stay dead. And people wondered why I thought the past should stay ground beneath my heel.

I turned back to my latest would-be dad. If he called me "son" I was going to kill him.

"I'm your father," he insisted. "But I wanted you to fulfill my ambitions more than I wanted you to simply be my child. I wanted you to supplant the pharaoh. I surrendered to pure evil to make it happen. My soul is my business. But I didn't realize how many others would share the consequence of its loss. I'm so sorry, my son. In my arrogance I almost destroyed you. Your survival doesn't change my guilt… or my responsibility."

"Seto," Yami interrupted. "You know that vision we had at Alcatraz where we were fighting?"

"We're always fighting. What's your point?" I tossed back at him with a smirk.

"I'm serious. That duel we saw… we were battling each other. It was a duel to the death. We could both feel it." He turned to Akunadin. "That was you, wasn't it? You set us up."

"Yes."

It was true then… some past life version of myself had tried to kill Yami. It was a good thing I didn't believe in destiny. But Yami did. What did he see when he looked at me? The man who'd betrayed him in ancient Egypt? Or the one who'd tried to kill him 3,000 years later at Death-T?

"Did he succeed?" I asked. "Is that how your son became the pharaoh? By killing Yami?"

"No."

I laughed. I didn't care how bitter it sounded. "So no matter what the time period, I didn't win. It probably wasn't for lack of trying."

"You came to your senses. You had help," Akunadin said.

"Kisara," I said, suddenly knowing it was the truth.

He nodded.

"Why are you here? To remind Yami of some 3,000 year old reason he has to hate me? Or to tell me that in another life I betrayed and tried to kill everyone? Big deal. I did the same in this one and everyone knows it. If you're here to finish the job on me, choose your weapons," I said, just wanting this over with.

"Fight you? Try to kill you? No! I will never hurt you again," he yelled.

"Then no more lies or evasions!" I screamed.

"You don't understand. I'm playing your game. I'm facing its challenges. It's 3,000 years too late, but…" He paused, choosing his words as carefully as if they were cards in his deck. "After all the eons to finally behave with honor… to have set my feet on the right path, the one that will bring me home… I wouldn't trade that, no matter how hard the road becomes. I have met no nightmares but the ones I've earned."

He'd finally said something I couldn't dismiss.

"Why the fuck are you here?" I challenged.

My question confused him. "I'm your father. After all this time, I wanted to see you."

I hated the way he kept acting like he was a dad or something… like that was going to make me trust him. But for the first time I had a question about the ancient past, a way to prove it wasn't mine – and here was a guy that could answer.

"What about Mokuba?" I asked.

"Who?" he answered.

"My brother. Did I have a brother?" I asked.

"No. You were an only child."

I laughed. "Then the past really is meaningless."

"Not to me," he said as he vanished.

I sent my last sword back to my inventory. I'd almost forgotten I was carrying it. I'd created this game to defeat my anger and bitterness. But they were still here, as formidable as ever. I was the one wandering in circles, unable to find my brother, craving the touch of a man I'd lost to over and over. I'd been raised to be stronger than that.

As if to prove just how far I'd fallen, Yami came over and stripped off my dark blue trench coat. I let him. I was left in a black dress shirt that wouldn't tear or get dirty no matter what I did to it. That would always repair itself no matter how much abuse it took.

Yami reached under my shirt. He leaned his head against my back and extended his arms until he reached my shoulders. I hadn't realized how tense I was until he started kneading them.

"I'm sorry the bastard wouldn't answer your questions," I said, trying to focus on anything but how I felt, how much I would give not to feel anything at all, not to enjoy the touch of Yami's hands on my shoulders.

"Akunadin told me what I needed to know," Yami said. "He was involved. He's sick with the guilt of whatever he did. As for me, I'm done listening to enemies. I have the faith that I will find my own answers." He paused, then continued in so soft a voice I had to strain to hear him, "Akunadin was even more lost in the past than I. Just like Bakura. That's the decision before me, isn't it? Whether to chase the past or hold onto the present? The time to put it to the test is approaching. I can feel it."

"What test?" I asked.

"I don't know. But the harder I've looked for my past the closer I've come to losing myself. I've learned so much since coming here. I trust your game. It won't lead me astray." I could sense him smiling. "You want answers. I only have questions."

Yami kept saying he had faith in my game. I wasn't so sure. The more I tried to push away my doubts, the closer they crowded.

"At least we got a little intelligence out of it. If Akunadin broke ranks, Bakura might not be far behind. Outside of that, it was a boring waste of time," I said, trying to go back to my old, business-like self, even though Yami was still massaging my shoulders.

Yami gave them a last pat and slipped around to face me. "It wasn't boring and you know it. Don't pretend you felt nothing."

"Don't make me laugh. Some guy comes here bleating about fatherhood and that's supposed to matter to me? So he screwed his son over. Big deal. Isn't that what fathers do? At least Gozaburo was honest. He never pretended to care about anything but breaking me. He was a man. I respected him – right up until the moment he threw himself out that window. And at least when he came back, he was looking for revenge, not crying about how sorry he was."

"How dare you praise Gozaburo? You can't mean that!" Yami said, managing to look as self-righteous as ever, even as his eyes widened in shock.

"Don't tell me what I mean! Stop trying to make me feel connected to everyone! Gozaburo was right. That isn't strength."

"Stop saying that!" Yami yelled, his eyes darkening to the color of dried blood.

"Why? Because you disagree? Gozaburo taught me to be strong. And I was strong – strong enough to beat him at his own game. Strong enough to win," I said.

"Listen to yourself! It was a victory that almost killed you, that almost killed Mokuba," Yami insisted, as if I'd forgotten.

"I know that. But it was a victory. It was my fault I couldn't hold onto it. Not his," I said.

"You built this game to fight your demons. I won't let you give in to them!" Yami yelled. His hands were clenched at his side. He looked like he did in the worst of our duels. It reminded me of all the times he'd told me he hated me.

"You won't let me? What makes you think you have a say in any of this?" I snarled.

"Seto… what's going on?" Yami asked, suddenly looking less angry. The way he was trying to be reasonable all of a sudden, like I was some kid he was humoring, like I wasn't worth arguing with, sent me over the edge.

"The name is Kaiba," I snapped. "You think just because I let you fuck me that makes you the boss here?"

Yami looked as stern as I'd ever seen him, as mad as he'd been at Death-T. I expected the next words out of his mouth to be, "Mind Crush."

"This isn't worthy of you, Seto Kaiba," he said.

"Go on… say the rest," I taunted. "I've disappointed you. You're never going to forgive me. Say it and get it over with!"

Yami's eyes got distant, like he was lost in the memory of all the times we'd screamed at each other, hated each other, wished the other one was dead. Yami shook his head then looked me right in the eye. "Yes. I said all those things, once. It seems so long ago now. But…"

"But I deserved it," I put in before he could finish his sentence.

"But it's not true. Not anymore. You're not a disappointment, Seto. You make me feel alive."

He sighed again, then walked up to me and cupped my cheek in his hand, like we hadn't just been fighting, like I couldn't still feel my anger gripping me, as unwilling to let go of me as Yami was. I shook off his hand. It fell to my shoulder. He didn't let go.

"Is that why you said I hated you?" he asked. "Seto, how could you think I'd make love to you unless I meant it?"

I froze at the tenderness in his voice. How did he manage to sound so gentle without sounding weak? Yami reached for my cheek again. I stood my ground and shook him off. Just like before his hand only retreated as far as my shoulder.

"How can you act like Death-T never happened when it's what we have in common? You won, I lost; you swore you'd never forgive me. I'm the person whose soul you had to shatter to stop him from killing everyone in sight," I said.

"Stop it, Kaiba!" he said. He paused, lowered his voice and then deliberately used my given name. "Seto… stop pretending you haven't changed from that moment to this. We both have. That's a part of the past I would be glad to bury, especially when I see it poisoning you, when I can't find a way to draw the venom."

I stared at him. "I don't get it. You were furious a moment ago – like you'd finally had enough. Why aren't you mad anymore?"

I thought he'd forgotten how to smile.

"I think you're mad enough for both of us, right now," he said. The smile vanished as he added, "Listen to me, Seto Kaiba: I don't care how many reasons you think I have to dislike you or what I said before I truly knew you. I'll never give up on you. That's a promise. I don't make them lightly."

Yami was saying everything I wasn't supposed to want to hear. I should be standing on my own two feet, not leaning towards him, buoyed by his words and his presence, as if he was the teddy bear I'd lost in the move into my aunt and uncle's house. The strange thing was, I did feel stronger, feeling his belief wash over me, but it was a false strength.

I wasn't supposed to care about anyone or anything – even though I did. Yami wasn't supposed to trust me – even though he'd been doing that for a while now. Before I'd met Yami, I'd been in control. The world had been predictable. Now life was confusing… as unsettling as the feel of Yami's hand brushing back my bangs.

"I wasn't telling you what to do, Seto… I'm asking you to stop and think. I didn't say you should trust Akunadin; I don't trust him myself, not really. But he's playing this game now – maybe he wants the same thing as the rest of us… a second chance to make things right."

I shook my head. It didn't dislodge his hand. I said, "And maybe he's a lying bastard who's looking for the first chance to cut and run, just like everyone else who's ever called me 'son.'"

"Sugoroku does it too," Yami pointed out.

"At least we both know he doesn't mean it. It's the kind of social convention old geezers like him go in for," I said.

"No. I've never heard him call Jounouchi or Honda or any of the kids who come in the store, even the regulars, 'son' before."

I didn't want to talk about it. The last thing I wanted was another self proclaimed father.

I don't know what Yami saw in my face, in the eyes that were no longer hidden by my bangs, but he sighed and said, "We can sort it all out in the morning."

I suddenly realized how tired I was. We'd been marching all day; we'd been about to get some sleep when Akunadin had showed up.

Yami sat, pulling me along with him. I lay down. I was eye level with a small cave, more of a badger hole than anything else, with an even smaller summoning rune on its side. I hit it without thinking, almost knocking the stones over. Nothing happened; no senile keeper of useless trivia appeared. Either it was one of the caves I'd deliberately left vacant or Sugoroku wasn't in the lab looking for us. I grunted. I should have known. Relying on others was the ultimate childish weakness. I'd put all that behind me when I was eight. How could I have forgotten the lessons Gozaburo had engraved on my body?

Yami hadn't noticed the cave or the summoning rune. I didn't tell him. He must have thought I'd hit the ground in frustration. He sighed again. "It's your turn to sleep first," he reminded me.

"Sleep is a reward. I haven't earned it. I haven't figured anything out. For all I know we're still wandering around in circles. I haven't gotten any stronger," I muttered.

"You have, Seto. You have. And we'll see this game to its end. It's like you… relentless. But unlike you, it knows when to let up, occasionally."

He started stroking my hair again. I wanted to smack his hand away for being there, for touching me like he owned me, for making me like it. I fingered the chain around my neck, the one connecting me to his Puzzle. Even if I shoved him off and strode away, as long as I was wearing it, we were tied together. I bit back a groan, imagining Gozaburo's laughter that Yami had managed to put me on a leash like a dog that had followed him home, that was being tamed by a little petting.

I knew if I said any of this out loud, Yami would get mad. He'd be hurt. He'd call me "Kaiba" again, maybe this time for good. I didn't want that either.

It was easier to close my eyes. I hated everything that was going on. But I wondered what was happening to me: I no longer had the energy to hate Yami, to resist the fact that being with him felt good. But no matter what Yami said, I knew better: this wasn't strength.

* * *

_**Thanks to Bnomiko of betaing this chapter.** _

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I'm sorry for the delay in posting but sometimes real life interfers.

**Kaiba Note:** I wrote this story largely because I was struck by the scene at Alcatraz where Yami tells Kaiba that the demons they carry into their duels aren't only found in their decks – and that Kaiba has to defeat his own demons of anger, hatred and bitterness before he can move on. I wanted to look at how Kaiba would do that. But I never thought it would flow smoothly. The most significant influence on Kaiba is Gozaburo. Although Kaiba wants to rid himself of his adoptive father's influence – the energy he spends on proving he's surpassed Gozaburo and the way Kaiba alternates between rejecting his influence and parroting his words shows just how much Kaiba's still affected by him. So I think, even here, he'd have a hard time throwing off the idea that trusting and relying on others is a weakness. I choose chapter titles from Yu-Gi-Oh! booster and structure deck names and I thought, emotionally speaking, this one really fit.

_**Note to girru:**_ Thanks! You raised an interesting point in your review about Kaiba and friendship with Jounouchi and the others. I posted a reply in my replies to reviews on my Live Journal page. The link to my LJ is on my biopage here. My choices had a lot to do with the reasons that I chose to set the story when I did (following Alcatraz but before the later arcs) and how that relates to how I see Kaiba's development.


	36. Fury From the Deep

**CHAPTER 36: FURY FROM THE DEEP**

_MacBeth had a trio of witches and his wife telling him to kill his King. Othello had Iago whispering in his ear that Desdemona was playing him false. But surely bad – or even malicious – advice is way too common to be a tragedy. Perhaps it's only when we make these voices our own that the double double toil and trouble begins._

**SUGOROKU'S NARRATIVE:**

There was a comfortable couch in the computer lab, probably for when overtired programmers needed a break. Every time I saw it, I couldn't help measuring the cushions against Kaiba's lanky frame. As much as the couch tempted me, I stayed by my post at the computer console. I'd talked to Yugi already and I wanted to see the other boys as well. But I'd forgotten how comfortable the computer lab chairs were; how easy it was doze off.

I closed my eyes and found myself in one of those dreams where you know you're asleep. That was fine. I've always been ready to go along for the ride. You never know where dreams will take you. This one though, took me right back to the Kame Game Shop. I opened the door.

Seto was alone. He was quietly restocking the shelves. He couldn't reach the higher ones. That's when I realized he was eleven, and he was working in the store because I'd adopted him and his brother. I was just getting home after being called into Seto's school. He hadn't been there.

"Where's Mokuba?" I asked as I entered the shop. It was rare to see them apart.

He turned to face me; his back was ramrod straight. I braced myself. He was tense, not nervous. Once I might have confused the two, but the year I'd spent with Seto since adopting him and Mokuba had driven the difference home.

"I sent him upstairs. I didn't want to worry him," Seto said, keeping his eyes on me. The measuring look in them was startlingly unchildlike.

"I've just come from your school," I said.

"I know. It wasn't hard to figure out where you were. It's not like you're in the habit of wandering off in the middle of the day," he said. With any other child I would have assumed he was trying to avoid being punished. But no other child would have reacted with that mixture of challenge and disinterest in his voice.

"If you'd been at school today we could have walked home together. They said you got in a fight and disappeared for the rest of the day."

He shrugged as if this was an everyday occurrence. But it wasn't. Not anymore. I'd been a regular visitor at his school that first month… first to comfort Mokuba, then to argue with the principal when Seto took Mokuba's protection into his own fists. By the end of the month, Seto and I were both in disgrace. Until the day the principal had called me in, smiled and said the boys were finally adjusting to their new surroundings. I thought he was as off-base as always. After all, he'd just spent a month telling me that it was natural for older boys to pick on younger ones, that it was part of growing up – and most of all – that Seto wasn't helping by stepping in with his own brand of justice. But I was so pleased to get good news I didn't point out that any adjusting had probably been done by the bullies. After a month, even the stupidest had gotten the message.

"Are you going to tell me what it was about?" I knew, of course, the school had told me (they were probably afraid that Seto's reign of terror was about to begin all over again), but I wanted to see if the boy would answer.

"Nothing," he muttered.

I sighed. "It's natural for you to want to protect Mokuba. The fighting I understand… but the school said you'd missed two days earlier this week."

"I didn't feel like going and you can't make me!" he snarled.

It was the first time he'd openly defied me. From the beginning he'd been impersonally polite… he'd gone to school, he'd helped at the store. I could almost believe he was a guest who'd stopped by to study retailing.

It had taken a year, but in the last month, he'd started to play the games filling our shelves – and he was finally playing like the eleven year old boy he was, instead of studying them like a miniature product tester. I'd even catch him smiling, usually at his brother – who could have stolen a smile from a stone statue. Mokuba could make me grin by walking in the room. Seto's smile was a smaller, more private affair, something I caught out of the corner of my eye and pretended not to notice for fear I'd scare it away.

"What's wrong, Seto? I'd hoped you were settling in." I suddenly wondered if that was the problem – if he was afraid of joining – and losing – the family we were all becoming.

"Maybe I don't want to be the perfect student you thought you were getting. What are you going to do about it? Throw us back?" he challenged.

"How could you believe I'd do something like that, no matter how many times I have to go to your school?" I asked.

"Why should I believe you? I don't even know why you adopted us in the first place. You have a family of your own."

I'd spent years digging through the remains of the past. Then I'd come home, started a family and learned that the future mattered more. Now, my daughter was grown with a child of her own. I sighed and tried to explain again. But how do you tell a child that he's wanted?

"As much as I love being a grandfather, I missed raising a child," I said.

"That explains why you adopted a kid – not why you wanted _us_ ," he said uncompromisingly.

"You were both so loyal… so brave… and you needed a father. I wanted to be that person."

"I don't need you! I don't need anyone!" he yelled as the self-control that had carried him through the year finally snapped.

"Are you fighting so hard because you really think I don't care about you – or because you're starting believe that I do? You act like you were born to go through life alone and unwanted. It's not true. I promise you, it's not. What are you afraid would happen if you let yourself feel safe, if you let yourself belong?

His shoulders shook. He wasn't crying though. Everything else was there – the heaving chest, the quivering chin – but there were no tears.

"I don't believe you! I won't!" he yelled. "If I do, you'll just leave like everyone else. I'm never trusting anyone ever again!"

He came up to me, fists raised. If he'd been older or bigger he'd have been dangerous. I did something I never would have done if this hadn't been a dream. I reached out and hugged him to me, trapping his small fists. His head came to my shoulder. He struggled for a moment, then stopped moving. I hoped that it was a good sign.

"No matter what happens child, I won't abandon you." I smiled as I recalled his words. "And you can't make me."

I fell out of my dream abruptly, as if I'd lost my step on the top of a staircase. I shook my head, disoriented. I wasn't in the computer lab. I was in the woods. I looked down at the sage's robe covering my shirt and pants. Kaiba was lying on the ground by my feet. As I watched, he pulled himself to a sitting position and shook his head. Then he looked up and jumped to his feet.

Whose dream had I been part of?

"What are you doing here, old man?" Kaiba said, instantly alert. His stance was challenging, like an argument waiting to erupt.

Before I could answer Yami ran over.

I couldn't think of Kaiba as anything other than a child, despite his height, his history and his air of barely contained hostility. It was different with Yami. Whenever I saw him I saw the pharaoh holding out his hand to me at our first meeting, back when I'd been a young man myself. He'd saved my life; he'd given me the Puzzle that Yugi had later assembled. He'd been this barely-remembered, regal, mystical being. For decades, I'd told myself that he was a desert-born mirage.

All that vanished when Yami opened his mouth.

"What are you going on about now, Kaiba? You go to sleep arguing and wake up yelling. I wish your virtual world came with a mute button!" Yami paused then added, "Wait! What's Yugi's grandfather doing here?"

"I'm not here. I'm sitting warm and safe in the Kaiba Corporation computer lab. You can't both have forgotten how this world works," I said with a smile, trying to defuse the situation.

"Of course not," Kaiba snapped, obviously annoyed at my suggestion he'd let something slip. "You still haven't explained why you're here. Mokuba and Yugi aren't due to leave their latest safe house until tomorrow."

"If I'm here one of you must have summoned me," I pointed out.

Kaiba looked around. He gestured towards the summoning tiny summoning rune and the small cave that was sunken into the ground and half hidden by the weeds.

"I did. Earlier. You weren't here. I thought the cave was empty." He sounded angry and hurt, like the child from my dream.

"Just when were you going to tell me that?" Yami snapped.

"I figured it didn't matter. No one showed up, anyway," Kaiba muttered.

"I'm sorry. I was asleep," I said.

Kaiba and I came to the same conclusion at the same time. We'd both been sleeping; it had been enough to merge our dreams.

Kaiba's face was normally pale. Now it turned ashen. His eyes widened and I could hear the slight whistle of his indrawn breath. Horror and then, inevitably, a dawning anger raced across his face. His mouth snapped shut; his eyes narrowed.

"You bastard!" Kaiba yelled.

"What is going on around here? And stop yelling at Yugi's grandfather!" Yami hollered.

"Did you enjoy the show, old man? It was all bullshit anyway," he said.

"Kaiba…" I began, then stopped. I had no idea what I could say that would help.

"It's a good thing Gozaburo can't see me. He'd laugh his head off."

But I didn't see how anyone's laugh could have been harsher or more bitter than Kaiba's was right now.

"Calm down Kaiba, please. It's okay," I said quietly. I'd hugged him in our dream. He looked just as tense now, but this was no longer a dream. I gestured toward him helplessly, but I didn't move forwards.

"Stop saying everything's okay! Mokuba's out there somewhere in a game I built – and I'm throwing away everything – the anger, the distrust – that I've used to protect him, everything I've used to win," he said.

"You don't want to back away from friendship… from what we've found. You know you don't. That's not winning," Yami said urgently.

"Don't you get it? I don't want this to stop – any of it. I keep figuring you're going to walk away, and I don't want that either. I want to believe in you, to believe that you… to believe that I'm…" Kaiba snapped his lips together, imprisoning his words before any more could escape.

"Seto, I meant every word, every endearment I've ever spoken – and even the ones I haven't." Yami moved forward and reached his hand towards Kaiba's face but Kaiba snapped his head back.

Kaiba went on as though Yami hadn't spoken, hadn't reached out to caress him. His voice rose with every word. "What can this be but a weakness? You think you're helping. But you're not… all of you. You're suffocating me. You're sapping my strength just when I need it most."

"Kaiba! After all that has happened, how can you still cling to the belief that strength is measured by how often and how hard you push others away?" I asked, too disturbed to measure my words. "You know better. Even you have learned to let others in."

"Fuck you! You know about that too?" he said, gesturing towards Yami. "My life is none of your business!" he yelled as he stormed off.

Yami glared after him, until Kaiba was lost in the twilight that had replaced true night in this world. "He's forgotten again that if he runs too far, I'll just appear next to him like some kind of string-toy. I don't care. I refuse to chase after him as if he was a toddler that needs to be restrained. Even Honda's nephew behaved better."

I couldn't help but smile. "Not a toddler, a teenager. And you can all be more difficult." Yami looked puzzled. I explained, "When all's said and done, Kaiba's four months younger than Yugi. And you may have been born so long ago that you've forgotten your birthday, but it can't be too far removed."

Yami laughed, his anger vanishing with the sound. "Do you know how many times I've called him a spoiled brat? And yet, I keep forgetting it's the simple truth. Sometimes he seems 3,000 years older than my forgotten age, and then…" He passed then said, "Thank you for looking for us."

There was a hint in his voice of the pharaoh he'd been, but a hint of uncertainty as well.

"I care about both of you," I said.

"I'm grateful." He paused, then said awkwardly, "I've always tried to help Yugi, but I wasn't always right."

"No one is. And you did more than help. You gave Yugi the space and safety to discover his own strengths."

He smiled. We stood for a moment in silence, then Yami said, "I wanted… I'd hoped… I know Seto will find a way to defeat his demons. I have faith in him. But right now his determination is like a weapon in his hands and I'm afraid he'll cut himself on it. He keeps saying that friendship is a weakness, that Gozaburo was right." Yami shook his head. "After all that man did…"

"Yes. He destroyed Kaiba's trust, if it hadn't disappeared long before that," I agreed, thinking of my dream.

"What happened tonight?" Yami asked.

It was my turn to pause. If we'd been at home, I'd never have revealed anything as personal as Kaiba's dream. But the boys were in this nightmare world – and everything that had troubled Kaiba asleep was being replayed when he woke.

"I'm not sure. I was drawn into his dream. I think you need to know. He dreamed that he and Mokuba were adopted by me and not Gozaburo."

"What?" Yami stared at me, eyes wide with shock.

"He was trying to push me away. He didn't believe I wanted him… no, he was afraid to believe it, desperate even… he needed me to prove I wouldn't leave him no matter what he did."

"He was like that all day. He kept yelling that he didn't need anyone… then he went to sleep with his head in my lap." Yami's eyes widened. "He keeps demanding that I prove friendship is real, that it's safe to trust. And now, he stormed off – alone, just like in his dream. And I let him."

I stared at him. "Yami! Shouldn't he have returned – or dragged you along after him by now? Unless he ran right into a challenge. This game can turn his nightmare into reality."

"Not if I get there first," Yami said as he followed Kaiba into the artificially bright night.

* * *

.

_**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter!**_

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Although in the dub version Kaiba is two years older than the rest of the crew – which makes it odd that he's in the same class as them – the timeline Mokuba gives at Death-T would make Kaiba the same age as the rest of them, which makes sense since he's in the same class. Anyway, I like the idea he's the same age, because it really underscores how different his life is. Then when I stopped to consider their relative birthdays, given that Kaiba's is October 25, it makes him one of the younger members of the group, almost five months younger than Yugi's June 4th birthday. That always cracks me up. So does the fact that Yugi's a Gemini.

One of the most interesting contradictions with Kaiba is that on the surface he's one of the most self-centered characters in Yu-Gi-Oh! I mean, the guy practically screams, "Me! Me! Me!" throughout the series. But in another way, you could make a good argument that he's one of the most selfless in a selfless cast, because every decision, no matter how self-destructive or badly it turns out, was made with Mokuba's welfare, rather than his own, in mind.

I've always wondered what would have happened if Seto and Mokuba had been adopted by people who were prepared to love them. I think Seto would have been polite to his new parents because I think he would have felt grateful to them for enabling him to keep his promise to Mokuba that they'd stay together, but I think he also would have had a very difficult time trusting that his parents actually wanted him or opening up to them.

He was eight when his father died. He must have trusted that his aunt and uncle would raise him and Mokuba and that they were safe. Once he was betrayed, I can't see him (as he would put it) making that mistake again. And I think that the closer he came to wanting to be part of a family, the harder he'd pull away. To me, that's one of the saddest things about his adoption by Gozaburo – that what he really needed was someone who was prepared to care about him and show him that not everyone is untrustworthy.

Someone like Sugoroku.

But I think that Kaiba would read wanting people to care about him as a weakness, one that, unfortunately he couldn't keep from entering his dreams.

**Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my Live Journal account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated.

_As always, comments would be adored…_


	37. Raging Battle

**CHAPTER 37: RAGING BATTLE**

_Stories are full of magical creatures living on alien worlds in galaxies far, far away. But perhaps the most mysterious alchemy of all is the way tales take the most mundane objects and make them into something extraordinary._

_Is there anything more commonplace than a mirror? What mystery can there be in an item used for checking whether there's spinach stuck between our teeth? An object that tells the story of our aging in the way our search for pimples becomes a check for gray hairs?_

_And yet in the hands of story-tellers, the humble mirror becomes a detective agency for wicked witches or a portal to a looking-glass world full of playing card armies and fierce – if never fully described – jabberwockies._

_But sometimes the scariest use of all is its original one – when we look into its smooth surface and see ourselves._

**YAMI'S NARRATIVE**

I ran after Kaiba, anger and frustration lending me speed, even as a fog blew in and deepened around me. Ever since I'd met him, Kaiba had asked – no, he'd demanded – that I prove that friendship was real. But how do you tell someone that they're wanted… that they're loved… when they refuse to listen?

I thought of all the times Kaiba had turned from me, had run into the waiting arms of ice monsters and Wicked Worm Beasts, more comfortable in their embrace than mine. Kaiba deserved what he'd gotten now – facing danger in a nightmare world on his own. Except my breath stuck in my throat at the thought of him hurt… and no one deserved to be that alone.

I'd experienced the world through Yugi; his confidence that we existed to care for one another was carried through our shared blood. But Kaiba's reality had never been Yugi's. He didn't prefer his demons – they were all he'd known. That was such a big thing to forget, but I did it over and over.

In his own way, Kaiba had tried to tell me: we'd banished Gozaburo from his body; his voice remained. It had been taunting him, tearing at him the whole time we'd been in this world. It was the last thing Kaiba heard as he fell asleep after we made love; it was the voice he woke up to before receiving my kiss each morning. I'd known he was haunted; I was stunned at how deep the wound ran, like a flaw that could shatter the hardest diamond.

Except he was never shattering ever again. I'd never given up. I wasn't quitting now. Neither would Kaiba. As often as he lost sight of himself, he always found his way back one more time. I'd stood at the center of his soul. I knew the strength that lay there.

The fog parted as suddenly as it had rolled in. Kaiba suddenly appeared in front of me. He was in the middle of a fight. He'd never been as far away as I'd thought. I wondered if the game had hidden him from my sight until I was ready to see clearly.

It took me a moment to recognize the demon in front of Kaiba, even though I'd seen Kaiba face his adoptive father in Noa's virtual world. He was back, flame still running off his enormous, red monster's form. He was impossibly, intimidatingly tall… only Kaiba wasn't intimidated. There was no room for anything but hatred and defiance on his face, for all that he looked a child next to the monster's bulk. A lash swept out; it struck Kaiba across the arms as he reached out to protect his face.

"Seto!" I yelled. I still thought of him as "Kaiba," my proud rival. But I called him by his given name, the name no one else used; it was mine alone.

He turned to face me, still watching the monster in front of him out of the corner of his eye, and I knew Sugoroku was right. Kaiba hadn't expected me to follow.

"You came?" he asked quietly, his face blank. His mouth remained half open.

I was better at command or even reassurance than love. I'd told Kaiba over and over again that everything would be all right; I'd never told him just how precious he was to me.

"Always," I answered. "This is where I want to be… by your side."

He looked at me, weighing something only he could see. He came to a decision and nodded.

"Then stay," he said. A small smile, the kind he only gave Mokuba, graced his face and disappeared as quickly.

Gozaburo tried to take advantage of Kaiba's seeming distraction. He swung again. It was what Kaiba had been waiting for. He side-stepped the whip, called in his katana and swung upwards, partly severing the joint connecting the whip hand at the wrist. The creature dropped the whip and roared in pain. Kaiba darted to the side and swung at the tendons above the monster's enormous heel. With two strokes of his sword he'd gone a long way towards crippling his foe. But this was no Wicked Worm Beast to be taken down with a couple of blows. I doubted Kaiba could kill him. Already Gozaburo had retrieved his whip, ready to wield it with the left hand.

Kaiba grinned. This had been the opening gambit in his counter-attack. He snapped his fingers as if he was still on his duel tower and a holographic stadium full of imaginary spectators were chanting his name. Copycat appeared, shining his mirror at Gozaburo then reflecting its trapped light back at Kaiba. Kaiba seemed to grow; he was engulfed in flame until he was as large and as monstrous as his foe – with one crucial difference: Copycat had duplicated the monster in its original, undamaged form. Now Kaiba had the power to kill his adoptive father and enemy.

But not like this.

Only Kaiba would try to silence Gozaburo's voice by becoming him, his humanity dissolved in flame. Unexpectedly, I felt a curious tenderness for his capacity for always arriving at the wrong conclusion, his steadfastness at marching down the wrong road as quickly as possible. I thought of that line of hieroglyphics now embedded in his coding: "Whatever happens here becomes real." Kaiba might hate me for it, but he wasn't going to be defeated, not like this, with his victory damning him forever.

I played Ground Erosion. The earth opened at Kaiba's feet. Pink and yellow and orange light flew upwards and wrapped itself around his newly created monster's form. He tried to hold on to his inhuman body but he was tossed around by the light. It tore his new form from him as easily as a parent stripping off an infant's clothes before disappearing back into the earth. The ground sealed itself until not even a scar in the dirt remained. Kaiba turned to face me, human once more. I'd expected his anger; it was the pain that almost undid me.

"I was about to win," he whispered. "Why did you stop me?"

"You can't win by becoming as much like him as possible," I said, gesturing to the monster in front of us. "All you can do is lose the most precious thing you have. And what if everything that happens here truly does become real? Is that what you want? Or is it that you just don't care what happens to you?"

"It's my life! You have no right to interfere!" he howled.

In a way Kaiba was right. I had no idea what would happen to me when the game ended. How could I tell him how to live his life when I had such doubts about my own? And yet wasn't caring for him – loving him – its own right?

"You can't ask me to stand here and watch you destroy yourself. Never ask me to stop caring," I said, my voice as low and intense, pitched to reach his ears alone.

"He really does have you on a leash, doesn't he?" Gozaburo laughed. It was hard to recognize anything in his voice but pure malice and hatred. "You're not just a stray dog – you're one that's been broken to heel every time he snaps his fingers."

"No," Kaiba said, but he didn't sound convinced.

"You just keep telling yourself that, but every time you roll over for him, you're just proving me right."

"No," Kaiba said, more firmly this time. "I know you're wrong. I can't help listening to you anyway – and that's the real weakness. That's why I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get rid of you."

"Even by fighting with his weapons? You tried that once. How well did it work out for you?" I asked sarcastically, angered that his adoptive father still had such a hold on him.

Gozaburo laughed again. With my entrance into the game, Kaiba's foe had gained seven more cards he could use at will. He called in Red Potion, healing his wounds instantly.

"Thanks," Kaiba said sourly.

"You're pathetic. You're still hoping he cares," Gozaburo sneered. "He was just waiting to betray you now that he's tired of fucking you – and if you weren't weak enough to want to believe in him, you'd know that."

"It's not a betrayal to beg you to remain yourself, to beg you not to give into the darkness you've fought off so many times. You want to know how much I believe in you? I believe you can find a better way to win – and that you can do it without becoming the monster you just swore to destroy," I said. I wished I could find to words to convince him. I wanted to take him in my arms.

"No matter how much it hurts?" Gozaburo sneered as he played Dark Room of Nightmare. Stone walls rose around us, entombing us within their cold confines. I drew in a deep breath, needing to remind myself that my long-overdue grave hadn't claimed me. Then a cool breeze hit my face. I looked up at the roofless sky. I could see the twilit night above us.

I frowned, considering the card he'd chosen. Surely he couldn't expect a mere change of setting to upset Kaiba? The Dark Room of Nightmare added to battle damage by decreasing an opponent's life points. But although, as in any duel outside, the stronger monster would win, life points were irrelevant here. I looked back at Gozaburo and gasped. Gozaburo had been a creature of pure flame, now shadows swirled around him, flaring out like one of Kaiba's trench coats.

"Predictable," Kaiba muttered.

I shook my head, puzzled. Kaiba caught the movement and glanced at me, rolling his eyes at my confusion. "There's more than one kind of battle damage."

I looked at the tattered sleeves of Kaiba's coat, at the still seeping cuts on his arms and across his chest, and understood.

Gozaburo summoned two monsters to the field. I recognized them from Kaiba's deck: X-Head Cannon and La Jinn, the Genie of the Lamp. The bastard was using Kaiba's monsters against him.

"We're a team, Seto," I said. "My entrance gave him seven extra cards. If you need mine, tell me how you want me to play them and they're yours. I want to help."

"Then stand back so I can fight this battle on my own," Kaiba said.

I started to protest, then held my peace, thinking of the last time we'd faced Gozaburo in that holographic chess game at Kaiba's mansion. Even though we'd beaten him together, even though Kaiba had been the one devising the strategy and orchestrating the moves, my presence had tainted the victory in his eyes.

Kaiba smile was twisted, but it was there nonetheless. "You challenged me to find a better way, and that's just what I'm going to do."

He summoned the Hitotsu-Me Giant on the field, as he'd done to start so many duels. Kaiba surveyed him as dispassionately as he did all his sacrifices. Either X-Head Cannon or La Jinn could have killed the giant duel monster easily. But Kaiba wasn't looking at them; he was staring at Gozaburo. He was willing to throw away one of his remaining six cards to see what Gozaburo would do.

Gozaburo didn't hesitate. He waved his monsters off and grabbed the Hitotsu-Me Giant in his claws, incinerating it instantly. He laughed as it turned to ash and blew away.

I'd never given Anzu or Honda enough credit. It must have been hard for them to stand on the sidelines smiling cheerfully whenever I turned my head.

"You threw away your chance to win, you pathetic fool – and worse, you did it at his bidding," Gozaburo said, nodding in my direction. "You had a chance to defeat me, to be a man, instead of the sniveling girl you are."

Kaiba's face turned white. He pressed his lips together so tightly they disappeared into a thin line, then opened them enough to say, "I thought you'd do that."

The wound on his chest widened; blood dripped from its edges. Kaiba caught his breath; one hand lifted to the gash on his chest. But Gozaburo wasn't the only one who could borrow from Kaiba's deck. I played the Holy Elf's Blessing. She walked over to Kaiba. I tried to repress a flare of jealousy as she touched him, as her fingers played across the wound on his chest. The bleeding slowed and then stopped. She moved on to his arms, stroking them gently before disappearing.

"Tell me Seto, how does it feel to be his pet?" Gozaburo said, as if his words could undo the Holy Elf's blessing and make Kaiba bleed again.

I gritted my teeth, furious at Gozaburo for using Seto's name – the name I thought of as my own – to mock him.

I refused to acknowledge Gozaburo even to refute his accusation. I said to Kaiba, "I promised not to interfere, but I can't watch you in pain and not try to ease it."

"I remember the first time you said that," Kaiba answered. "Do you remember the tag-team match we fought at Battle City against Lumis and Umbra?" he asked, as if this was an ordinary conversation, as if he wasn't standing in the middle of a duel facing a giant monster in a limestone walled tomb.

"The one where you got everyone so pissed at you it was hard to tell who wanted to push you off that tower more? How could I forget it?" I asked.

Kaiba smiled briefly, then said, "Do you remember when I lost my Blue Eyes White Dragon? Did you mean it when you said you'd take revenge for me, even if it cost us the match?"

"Every word," I assured him.

"Or was it just a ploy to get me to stop and think? You said that anger was clouding my judgment."

"It was. I would have done it anyway," I said.

"You say so many things so casually - as though they're universal. But they're not. Anger fuels me. It's what got us out of that orphanage, it's what enabled me to beat Gozaburo, to stand up to the Big 5," Kaiba insisted.

"It's passion that fuels you, Seto – not anger. There's a difference."

Kaiba turned back to La Jinn and X-Head Cannon. It was hard to tell if he was talking to Gozaburo or me as he said, "But sometimes, hatred really does make you stupid. There's a reason you never put two monsters with equal attack strengths on the field at the same time. It makes it so easy to do this…"

He played Brain Control. The ridiculously oversized brain looked comically out of place, like something from a children's cartoon, as it floated through the air to hover over La Jinn, taking automatic control of his actions. The demon stroked the giant lamp at his side, laughing gleefully the whole time, not caring if he was about to die as long as he could take someone else – even a comrade - to the graveyard with him. X-Head Cannon tried to resist, moving backwards against a sudden wind before being pulled irresistibly into La Jinn's lamp. La Jinn burst into a black and purple flame the moment X-Head Cannon disappeared, until all that was left was a soot covered lamp that slowly melted into a puddle of darkened gold and sank beneath the dirt.

"Thank you for sending both my Light and Dark monsters to the graveyard. It enables me to call the Chaos Emperor Dragon to destroy you," Gozaburo said. It was another monster from Kaiba's deck. The tall, scaled monster appeared in front of us, its webbed wings stretched wide. Most dragons were magnificent. This one, for all his size, was an ugly, pinched-in creature.

"If you had any doubt that I'd be willing to pay any price to get rid of you – here's the proof," Kaiba said as he summoned his Blue Eyes White Dragon to stand in opposition.

It was all I could do to keep from crying out. Their attack strengths were equal. Even if he managed to take out the Chaos Emperor Dragon, Kaiba was going to lose the dragon he'd called his pride and soul. And, as usual, he'd thrown it onto the dueling field without any spell or trap cards to protect it.

Gozaburo shook his fiery head. "Did you really think I'd send out my dragon without a back-up plan?" he asked as he equipped it with Dragon Nails. The Chaos Emperor Dragon lurched forward, swinging wildly. The steel tipped talons caught the Blue Eyes White Dragon across the neck, severing the jugular, turning its silver-white scales red. Kaiba grimaced, but refused to turn away, watching as his dragon fell forward and turned to a gray mist that dissipated before our eyes.

"Look at you. You're lost. You can't even find your way out of the game you designed. Just like you keep pinning your hope to those dragons, and they always fail. Just like you. Your brother needed you to be strong. Instead you threw away the things that gave you power. You said it yourself a moment ago… you never would have been able to rise so high without your anger and hatred. They're what give your dragons their wings." Gozaburo's voice was now seductively soft.

"I tried to kill him too. Every time I'm tempted to listen to you, I remember that," Kaiba said.

"Anger… hatred… cruelty… they're not like a coat you can take on and off. They're what you are. It's time to drop the pretense you could ever be anything more. You can't play with a deck you were never meant to use," Gozaburo went on, still in that damnably gentle voice.

"I'm not failing – and neither are my dragons," Kaiba said, but he looked as lost as he always did when his beasts were sent to the graveyard.

"Its light was so easy to extinguish – just like yours," Gozaburo said.

"Go ahead and try," Kaiba sneered as he played Consecrated Light. It floated above us, a smiley-faced soap bubble spinning in the middle of a rainbow – all pastels and pinks. Kaiba stood out like shadow, silhouetted against its brightness. It was the last card I expected him to play; its buoyant light was so at odds with the funeral mood that the loss of Kaiba's dragons always engendered.

The Chaos Emperor Dragon swung forward again, but this time his claws swept harmlessly through Consecrated Light. The pink bubble at its center reformed; it smiled at the dragon. Dark monsters were powerless to hurt it. The dragon stumbled forward, thrashing wildly, but it was like trying to fight a sunbeam.

"I let darkness in once. I'll have to live with that. But you can't break through again," Kaiba said.

Gozaburo sprung forward, swinging his whip, but his attack had no more effect than the Chaos Emperor Dragon's had. Consecrated Light smiled at him with undiminished sweetness. Gozaburo grabbed for the seemingly powerless monster, but each time Consecrated Light slipped through his grasp. Gozaburo threw back his head and roared in frustration.

"You can't touch him. Are you going to pretend that you're not just as much a creature of darkness as the Chaos Emperor Dragon? Remember who you're talking to. I know better," Kaiba sneered.

"I still have one last monster to call to the field – and the puny thing you've summoned has no attack or defense points to stand against it. It's weak like you. You've thrown away your last chance to see your brother. You really are worthless, aren't you? You've even forgotten that losers die."

"How many times do you have to beat Gozaburo before you stop listening to him?" I yelled in frustration.

Kaiba whirled around to look at me. The color drained from his face. His gaze was wide and open –like he was staring into his worst nightmare. Except I'd seen Kaiba wake up from his nightmares before, and he'd never looked this stricken. I glanced down, expecting to see a knife in my hands; I was that sure I'd stabbed him.

Kaiba turned his back on me and screamed at his opponent, "Even if you're right, even if thinking I can change is a fool's dream, even if every time Yami and I look at each other all he sees is the reflection of how badly I've screwed up, of how some things can never be forgiven – it doesn't matter. I'm never becoming the monster that tried to kill my brother again. I'm never becoming you. If I have to move forward with you clawing at my back every step of the way, I will. But you're not stopping me. Play your last card so I can win."

Gozaburo summoned a Blue Eyes White Dragon of his own as the ultimate insult, planning to kill Kaiba with his own beast. But Kaiba smiled as he turned over Torrential Tribute. Gozaburo had played his final monster. Now Kaiba had swept him off the field. But the gusting wind and lightning didn't end with the dragon's disappearance. Instead it intensified until it was strong enough to extinguish even the flame monster Gozaburo had become.

"You chose to become a monster; you thought it made you more powerful. I don't know what else there is, or how else to be – but I know that's not strength. Now go to the graveyard with all the others," Kaiba said as Torrential Tribute drowned the last flicker of Kaiba's adoptive father, leaving the twilit sky clear and the field in front of us empty.

Gozaburo was gone, but Kaiba didn't relax. He pivoted on his heel and leaned back slightly, spine stiff, arms crossed in front of his chest, ignoring the half-healed wounds adorning both. He glared down at me. For Kaiba, the battle hadn't ended.

"That wasn't Gozaburo," Kaiba said.

"Kaiba?" I asked, staring at him in bewilderment.

"Yeah. It was a Kaiba all right. You just had the wrong one. That wasn't Gozaburo. It was me." He laughed. It was painful to hear. "How can you say I'm different from my adoptive father when you can't even tell us apart?"

"That monster wasn't you, Seto. Never believe that. It was your fear and your doubts. I didn't recognize it because when I look at you I see a dragon flying free… as powerful as your Blue Eyes White Dragon, beautiful as the Shimmer Dragon you worked on before we came here."

"Drop it, Yami," he said.

"No! Are you calling me a liar?" I yelled. "I've stood inside your soul. I shattered it. That monster was not you." I took a deep breath, about to say something irrevocable. "I know the man I love."

Kaiba stared at me. His lips parted, then closed.

"I'm not asking for a response," I added quickly. "I wanted you to know what I feel, how I see you. That's all. Sometime I feel like I don't know anything. I had no idea you were under siege even though we've been together every waking moment and watched each other's sleep. But the one thing I do know is that monster may be tearing at your soul, but it's not a part of it."

"You see a dragon. Gozaburo saw a weapon. That's what he called me," Kaiba said.

"When?" I asked.

"That first time I saw how my designs had been used. Do you remember the design for the trap card, Burning Land?"

I nodded, seeing holographic fire sweep across the land, consuming everything it touched, picturing those vibrantly alive flames and the dead earth beneath them.

"That's what it looked like, seeing the missile I'd designed, detonate as it reached the ground. I'm not going to lie… it was beautiful. And that's when Gozaburo said it: that that missile was me… it was my anger, my hatred, my need to destroy. He was right. Everything I've ever designed has been a part of me. Everything."

"But you would have turned it into a hologram. The anger would still have been there; it wouldn't have killed." I thought of Burning Land again… of all of Kaiba's fire cards… how the flames seemed to dance in the air… how Phoenix Reborn's fiery plumage carried him back from death. "Fire isn't only destruction, it's life as well… it's desire."

Kaiba said, "I wanted to kill you once. I wanted to prove that nothing mattered but power and I was ready to murder anyone who got in my way."

"And I would have let you fall to your death on Pegasus' tower. You've always understood, haven't you? Even Yugi was horrified."

He shrugged. It felt like absolution. "I know what it's like to lose sight of everything but winning. I would have done it again tonight. It would have been just like the Wicked Worm Beast all over again… another meaningless victory."

"But you didn't. You won on your own terms," I reminded him.

Kaiba nodded. "So I did," he said, a note of satisfaction finally creeping into his voice.

I was under no illusion that Kaiba had silenced his monster forever. It was possible that for as long as he lived, his demons would follow behind, now nearer, now father away – even as Seto, as he'd promised, continued to move forward in spite of them. But I was glad he'd had this victory. And I was grateful that the game had made his demons flesh and bone, had put them in a form where Seto could do what he did best – fight against all odds and win.

I thought of the cards Kaiba had been working on after we'd banished Gozaburo from his body, if not his soul… the day I'd realized he'd planned to kill himself if we couldn't. It suddenly struck me that last quartet of cards – the Phoenix Reborn bolting like a comet across the sky… the Shimmer Dragon exhaling crystalline fire, the delicacy with which it was drawn at odds with its diamond-hard scales… the wobbly determination of Fledgling Grace as the untried colt stood on its own for the first time… the feeling of grace that fell from the sky with Light of Hope… these cards were all about life.

And where did I fit in? I felt alive, and yet I was in an imaginary world. I had to find out which was real. I owed the answer to Kaiba – and to myself.

Kaiba flopped down awkwardly on the ground, too worn out to stand. For once exhaustion had stolen his usual grace… and he'd let me witness the theft. I'd told Kaiba I loved him. He hadn't answered. But he'd let me stay and watch him duel his own fears; he'd let me see the monster he was afraid of becoming. Once, I'd forced my way into his soul. This time, he'd invited me in.

I sat down next to him. Up close I could see that while the Holy Elf had patched him up, the cuts hadn't fully healed. I started to call in the salve again, trying to remember how much was left.

"Leave it, Yami. They don't hurt," he ordered, hugging his arms across his chest again.

"If we don't take care of them…"

"What?" he asked, laughing harshly. "They'll scar? I didn't need the Holy Elf's Blessing. I could have managed."

"I know. I never doubted you'd win."

"I didn't. Not all the way. Not yet. But I will one day." Kaiba shook his head. "I still don't get it. How can you walk the road of battle with a partner?"

It had been hard enough to listen to those cruel taunts, to see how deeply they'd reached their target when I'd thought the voice had been Gozaburo's. To know that it was Kaiba's…

"Seto, it's okay to need," I said, resting a hand on his shoulder.

"To need what?" he asked irritably.

"Just to need," I answered.

Was this why I was still chained to the Puzzle? Because as much as I was growing to hate being an insubstantial phantom, ghosts didn't _need_? Kaiba had faced his fears and had, at least for the moment, won. Could I do the same?

I looked down and my gaze was caught – as it so often was – by those older scars, the ones that would never vanish, no matter how much salve I rubbed into them. I leaned over and traced the long scar on his side. He shivered.

"Stop that. I'm sick of you focusing on them," he said.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because the last thing I want is your pity."

"You couldn't be more wrong!" I said.

"When you look at them, it's pretty obvious I couldn't protect myself, that I was powerless to stop a damn thing. What else could you see?"

"Strength," I answered.

* * *

**KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

It suddenly hit me: the battle was over.

I'd won. I wanted to gloat. I wanted to take it out on the nearest available object. I wanted to celebrate. And Yami was sitting next to me. Inexplicably, against all expectation, he was here at my side.

I'd known I'd be facing a challenge from the moment I'd strode away from Yami and Sugoroku. I'd known I was going to be alone. Sugoroku couldn't follow and Yami was too pissed off to care. When I realized just who my enemy was – that all my anger and bitterness, all the stuff I'd kept bottled up – had been given solid form, I'd been glad no one would be around to witness the fight.

Then Yami had followed.

He'd stuck around through the whole mess… he'd seen all my pitiful fears and doubts… and he'd just told me I was strong.

Sugoroku had said once that there was a difference between power and strength. I didn't know any other way to be, how to live unless it was one step away from being consumed by my own anger and bitterness, but that was a good place to start. I'd chased power all my life. But I valued strength.

Yami was sitting next to me. I kept saying it to myself, kept sneaking looks at him. It took some getting used to. I'd run away and he'd come after me. He'd seen it all, he'd stayed, and he was a finger's length away.

My shirt and coat were in tatters, my chest was bare. Yami had too many clothes on. I knew the body under them, all lean muscles and wiry strength. I wanted to see it, to hold him in my arms, to press him into the ground as I followed him down. I wanted more from him than I'd ever asked for before. I wanted to possess him, to be a part of his body as thoroughly as he'd invaded my mind. He'd marched into my soul at Death-T and he'd never really left. I wanted to claim a piece of Yami for myself. Even more, I wanted him to feel the same ache, the same desire to let me in. I wanted him to want me.

I shoved Yami towards the ground, harder than I'd meant to. I expected him to push back. Instead went he flat on his back, utterly pliant, and looked up at me. I followed up my advantage. It was part of my nature, after all. I stripped off his shirt while capturing his lips, thrusting my tongue down his throat as far as it would go, until it was halfway between a kiss and a gag. I ground my hips against him, hard, while my leg pushed its way between his. I was frustrated by the clothes that still stood between us. Somehow I'd managed to trap his hands above his head; I was holding them both captive with my own. I'd never won a match against Yami, and here I was, pinning him to the ground, hearing him moan my name as I ground against him.

He looked like prey.

Was that all this was? A way to finally tell myself I'd won, that I'd come out on top? Worse, I could hear a voice in my head like an echo from the challenge I'd just endured, telling me that I had to hold Yami down or he'd never stay.

Instantly, I loosened my grasp. Yami could have pushed me off if he had wanted to, but he didn't. I leaned down and kissed him again, so that I was too close to get a good look at him, so that I wouldn't have to see the man who'd rescued Mokuba, the man who'd handed me my first defeat, looking defenseless. So I wouldn't have to wonder if that was what had run through Yami's mind every time that our positions had been reversed, every time he'd looked down on me. Despite all his protests, had he seen someone helpless? Had that been the turn-on; what made him go through with it?

I stopped moving; our lips were barely touching. I heard a snort and risked raising my head to look at Yami. Even with me still trapping his hands, he didn't look weak. He was smirking. His eyes had darkened to the color of dried blood. He had the same arrogant expression on his face as he wore for all our duels – especially the tag-team ones – the look that said he knew something I didn't and was waiting for me to catch a clue. Then his expression softened. I was willing to bet he was remembering everything he'd heard tonight, because suddenly, he looked like the man who'd chased after me, the man who'd stopped me from becoming my worst fears, who'd seen everything there was to see – and had told me he loved me, afterwards.

He looked like Yami. And, of course, he thought this was the perfect time to talk.

"Seto, passion and anger aren't the same. You can share one but not the other. You can have aggression without contempt." His smirk widened to a grin. "You should try it some time – starting now."

His words sounded as plausible as a marketing pitch, but I wasn't buying… not totally. There was something I needed to know. "Every time you've done this to me… every time I've lain beneath you… you felt like you were winning a duel… like you were beating me all over again, didn't you? Don't lie."

His eyes narrowed; the grin slid off his face. He really did look like we were dueling. "Sometimes all I can hear is the blood pounding through my body. Then I look down at you, ready to give me a piece of yourself you've never given anyone… I see your eyes, for once unguarded and looking into mine, for once, truly the mirror of your soul… and I do feel triumphant, like I've won something infinitely precious. Everything my body screams at me to do… to take… matches what I know in my heart. Yes, it feels like winning – but that doesn't mean one of us has to lose. I don't… I couldn't think less of you in the moment of expressing my love. I swear it."

Something about our position… about the way he was lying almost bonelessly beneath me as I pinned him to the ground with my hips, effectively immobilizing him… made it easier to talk.

"I don't know if I can match that," I said.

The cocky grin was back. "Of course you can. Or you wouldn't be hesitating now."

I'd sneered at the way Yami kept saying he trusted me, but now I wanted to believe him.

"You can have passion without anger," he repeated.

His legs were hooked around mine. His eyes were still wine-dark and intent. Yami was just as fierce as always; I was just as driven, just as relentless. Just as eager for more. And like Yami had said, all I could hear was the echo of my blood as it pounded through my veins. The sight of him lying there, waiting impatiently for me to take him… it thrilled me more than any duel.

It was time to prove that Yami was right about me.

It didn't take long to lose the rest of our clothes. Then I was the one covering him, moving across him, rolling over him like a fire across the earth. But he wasn't passive and this wasn't Burning Land. I wasn't taking anything; I wasn't sucking all the energy out of him and keeping it for myself, leaving him barren and empty. We were both a part of this heat growing between us; the way kindling and oxygen combine to become flame. This was pure, raw need. It was the same ache I'd felt every time Yami touched me, bringing the same promise of completion.

All the things I'd worried about, all the things I'd feared feeling, feared becoming, fell away. As new as this felt, it was the same, and if I'd been a praying kind of person, I would have given thanks. For all that it felt like anger, for all it had my blood singing the same way, it wasn't. It was what I'd experienced every time we'd made love and discounted because I'd been too busy afterwards trying to sort out winners and losers, trying to rank us in some leader board that existed only in my mind.

This was passion. It was a need that fed on itself until nothing else existed but this craving, until nothing would satisfy it but this joining. Until nothing mattered but the way Yami filled my senses, the sound of him moaning my name, the sight of him beneath me, his hair in matted strands across his face as his eyes drifted shut and then opened to stare, dazed, into mine, the feel of his sweat-slick body under me, the indescribable exhilaration of us merging together… of my body burning with hunger everywhere we touched… the headlong, heady feeling of everything rushing together, like fire gathering before a soon to be opened door, holding itself in wait in that last moment of anticipation. And then the door opened. I was drowning in sensation. It moved over and through us like a wave rolling over a burning land, consuming the fire and bringing peace.

Yami was right. This was winning. And there were no losers.

I lay on top of him, spent for the moment, then rolled off. Our hands were touching. I expected Yami to say, "I told you so," but he didn't. He crawled into my arms. I enjoyed feeling his now familiar weight against my heart.

"I keep trying to surround myself with light… Mokuba… my holograms… my dragons… but it feels like the darkness is always just one move away," I said, knowing it was an offering for my earlier doubts.

"Is that why you never let this world experience true night?" he asked.

I snorted. Trust Yami to be so romantic about something that was purely a matter of business strategy. "That was a commercial decision. People don't want to pay money to stumble around in the dark."

"Was that all it was?" He reached up to cup my cheek. "I don't want you to erase the things that make you Kaiba. Did you think I would pick the name Yami but never learn to embrace the darkness?"

I moved slightly and smiled into his hand. I reached up and took it in my own, only now I wasn't capturing it; he wasn't my hostage. I held his hand as my tongue swirled around his fingers, as I sucked each one in turn. He nuzzled my chest. We were sated, but this felt nice. It was companionship, I guess. That was the word Yami would have used. For all he'd talked about the power of unity, I was pretty sure this had never been what he'd had in mind. It was the closest I could come to understanding it though.

Yami had said he loved me. I hadn't known what to reply. I'd never used the word myself. Like friendship, it had seemed like a concept that had no place in my life except as it applied to Mokuba, and Yami wasn't my brother. It certainly wasn't a word I'd ever expected anyone but Mokuba to say to me… not say and mean, anyway. But unfair as it was, since I still had nothing to contribute on that score, I wouldn't mind hearing Yami say it again.

He had slipped his hand out of my mouth; he was brushing the hair off my forehead. His mouth had moved to my neck; his tongue was making little whirling motions against it. I could feel him start to harden a little as he pressed against me, could feel the first re-stirrings of my own arousal. It was different though, not as fast or as furious… desire without the urgency that would soon accompany it. Contradictory as it sounds, it felt almost serene, and that momentary sense of peace made it possible to ask, "Why did you say it?"

"What?" Yami asked without raising his head, his warm breath teasing the skin of my neck.

"That you love me."

He lifted his head at that and looked at me, the same direct look as always. "Because it's true. For the longest time the only thing real about me… the only thing that was truly and uniquely mine was my voice. You let me stay with you throughout that challenge. You set yourself over and over to live up to my belief in you. I've never seen anyone say more with silence than you – but there are times I need to speak… I need to hear myself say the words, because for the first time, I can."

He dropped his head back to my neck, biting and sucking harder now, claiming my attention. His explanation had been simple enough. I would insist to my dying day that I hadn't _needed_ him to say that he loved me, that I didn't _need_ anything. But as I felt my heart start to race from everything Yami was doing to me, as I felt myself lose everything again but this need to touch Yami and have him stroke me in return, I was left with the realization: I may not have needed Yami to say anything, but I'd wanted to hear it, nonetheless.

* * *

_**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter!**_

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I'm really curious… when I wrote the chapter I wanted it to seem like the monster could be Gozaburo, since a lot of what he was saying were things that came out of Gozaburo's "training." I wanted it to be a surprise when it turned out to be Kaiba himself, but I also wanted that to fit, to feel like the monster he was facing was sort of taunting him with all the things that Kaiba has never been able to throw off from his adoptive father's influence. Anyway, I'd appreciate it if people could let me know if you were surprised to find out it wasn't Gozaburo and if the way it turned out made sense.

I ended up being nervous about a lot in this chapter. I can see Kaiba being really hung up on sexual positions because he basically over-analyzes everything in terms of winning and losing and what it says about power. He probably doesn't brush his teeth until he convinces himself that it means he's chalking up a victory over cavities, and I don't see sex being the exception. So I could see him tying himself up in knots about what he was feeling and what Yami might be feeling. A lot of it is actually stuff he's been going back and forth about in his head, and I realized after writing it that he finally found a way to talk to Yami about some of what's been going on with him.

**Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my Live Journal account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated.

_As always, comments would be adored…_


	38. Metal Raiders

**CHAPTER 38: METAL RAIDERS**

_As the most famous fanfic One-True-Pairing of all time, Romeo and Juliet (which is, after all, simply an Elizabethan era high school AU of a Greek myth) would agree: every romance needs a couple of star-crossed lovers._

_Of course the degree of difficulty that our young lovers must face varies from story to story. Do a teenaged CEO and an ex-pharaoh come from different enough worlds to count? What if the girl you have a crush on has a crush of her own on your almost-identical, almost-alter-ego? Is that a big enough barrier to qualify?_

_At first, all Romeo and Juliet had to face – like that once-popular Greek pair, Pyramus and Thisbe, before them – was a generations long family feud. As they later discovered, death is the ultimate in adverse stars._

_Then again, this is Yu-Gi-Oh! where death is a much more elastic concept than even Shakespeare could ever have imagined._

**KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

It was Yami's turn to sleep. I sat next to him, glad of the quiet. Solitude had always meant safety. If no one is by your side, then no one can stab you in the back. There was more to it of course. Like I'd told Mokuba once, I wasn't proud of everything I'd done on our race to the top. But I'd never shown the slightest sign of regret. Sitting here, I knew I'd been lying all those times when I'd said to myself that if I showed any remorse, it'd be just one more weapon for someone to use against me – or at least, I hadn't told the whole truth. If I cared what anyone thought of me… they'd just be one more person who'd walk away. Except Yami knew what I was, he had from the beginning, really. And he'd told me he loved me. I was glad he hadn't asked for an answer.

He'd said it again, just after we'd moved back to our campsite, just as he was falling asleep. His eyes had been half closed but I could still see them gleaming… the same glint that had accompanied each of his victories. I remembered him saying that every time he made love to me he felt like he'd won something precious… even here, in semi-darkness with Yami safely asleep, I had to fight the urge to duck my head and look away from him.

I don't know what Yami had seen in my averted face but he'd murmured sleepily, "I think you need to hear that as often as possible."

I'd been torn between annoyance at his assumption that I needed anything and bewilderment because I kind of didn't mind being told he loved me. Yami had smiled and added, "You have no idea how cute you look right now."

He'd fallen asleep before I could reply – not that I had one ready.

No one had ever said I was cute before.

I knew what the word "cute" meant or I thought I did: something contemptibly weak and easily dismissed. But in Yami's mouth, words seemed to have lost their familiar meanings.

"I just feel…" I said aloud. I paused, trying to sort out my thoughts. Then I stopped. There was nothing more to say. I just _felt._ That was the problem. I just felt raw all the time – as exposed as a newly picked scab. I hated it. It wasn't just Yami. That I could handle. I was even getting used to it. But there were all these others now… Yugi… Sugoroku. It didn't matter that I could trust them. They _knew_ me, and I wanted someone to pay for that, preferably in blood. But they were my allies. No, my friends. That was the word they would have used.

I hit Sugoroku's summoning stone in frustration, sure the old man had gone home by now.

"How are you, son?" Sugoroku asked as he appeared in front of me. His arms were loosely crossed below his waist; his hands were tucked into his sleeves.

"I won." I paused and then repeated, "I won," hearing the words for the first time.

"Who were you fighting?" he asked.

"Myself," I answered.

He smiled. "That's always a victory worth celebrating."

"I figured you'd have gone home by now," I told him.

"Did you? No matter. It's pleasant to be here nonetheless." He was still smiling slightly. I wondered if he was remembering me stomping off.

"I didn't need you to wait up for me." I said curtly. I didn't want to tick the old guy off, exactly, but I couldn't resist trying to get him angry, trying to make him feel off balance, just to see if I could. As I was starting to suspect, it didn't work. He simply nodded in reply. It really was a bit like my dream.

When I'd started the night it had been business as usual, meeting power with power and to hell with the consequences. Yami had stopped me, had slowed me down enough to take a good look at the cards in my hand and realize: I could win – and I could do it without throwing away the person I was trying to become.

I still didn't get it. I didn't get why Sugoroku was here, why Yami had followed me, why he'd let me make love to him after watching me try my best to turn into the monster he'd defeated at Death-T. And the terrible uncertainty of it all made me want to retreat, even if it meant backing away from my future.

But duels and challenges exist so that we can test ourselves; the real battle is always within. I'd learned something tonight, something even an ignorant mutt like Jounouchi probably could have figured out in less time than it had taken me: I couldn't keep doing the same old shit and expect it to lead me anywhere new. I'd won tonight; I'd seen a little bit more of the road ahead. And I wasn't going to just walk it; I was going to march straight down the damn thing like there was no tomorrow.

"Why are you here?" I asked Sugoroku. This time I really wanted to know the answer.

"You ran off so suddenly. I was worried and I couldn't leave this spot to go after you. I was waiting, hoping you'd come back and summon me."

"Shouldn't you be asleep or something old man? Not that you've been any use, but when we get out, Yugi's not going to want…"

"To come visit me in the hospital?"

For the first time that I could remember I felt my face flush with shame, even though it made sense that Sugoroku hadn't forgotten. I refused to look away. Sugoroku had every right to throw Death-T in my face. I was surprised to see him look contrite, as if he was the one who'd designed a Death Simulation Chamber, not me.

"Once you wouldn't have blushed," he said.

"Does that make you happy?" I asked sarcastically.

"Yes," he answered.

Sugoroku sat down next to me. Yami was lying asleep on my other side. It felt surprisingly good. Sugoroku reached out and tentatively placed his hand on my shoulder.

"It's difficult, isn't it?" Sugoroku said.

"What is?"

"Figuring out the responsibilities of manhood."

"I've been a man for years," I snarled.

"So have I. That doesn't make it easy," he said mildly. I wasn't fooled. Like his grandson, he liked being gentle. That didn't mean he was weak.

"I never thought of you like that…" I muttered. "Like a father or something. I don't know why I dreamed that."

"It wasn't the first time you had that dream," he said.

"No."

There was another pause.

"I spent so much time planning my strategy for that chess game. And I never once considered what would happen afterwards, what it would be like," I said. "I would have made the same choice, even if I'd known, but maybe I would have been better prepared. I would have done a better job."

I recognized the look on Sugoroku's face from the family sitcoms everyone at the orphanage was so fond of watching. He had the same expression of forced patience that all the parents on all those shows had worn, as if it was something hospitals handed out along with a birth certificate. I'd always assumed that look was just another television lie.

"If you're going to get mad, just do it," I said. I'd been waiting for someone to get pissed off and walk away from me all night.

"I'm not mad," he said quickly.

"What, then?" I asked.

"You were ten, Kaiba."

"So what? Mokuba didn't need another kid to hang out with. He didn't even need a brother. He needed a father. And that's what I was going to be."

"He wasn't the only one," Sugoroku said.

I stared at him and shook my head. Sometimes Sugoroku was incomprehensible. Of course Mokuba hadn't been alone in needing a father. There'd been a whole orphanage full of boys wanting the same thing. Then it slowly dawned on me that Sugoroku was talking about _me_.

Sugoroku sighed. "If I could have one wish for you, it would be for you to learn you'd been a child. Even now, you haven't left your teenage years."

I frowned. "There's never been a shortage of people throwing my age in my face. My aunt and uncle tried to tell me I was too young to understand finance – like the word 'steal' was so hard to get; the orphanage tried to convince me that when I was older I'd know that leaving Mokuba was the right thing to do. Gozaburo…"

I stopped short, remembering how it felt to desperately try to stay awake long enough to finish each assignment, how I'd stand before him on one of his inevitable late night visits, trying to hide my growing agitation as I waited for him to give me permission to use the toilet. Even years later, I could still hear Gozaburo's voice saying, "You can't control anything. You can't keep from falling asleep, and if I make you stand here long enough, you won't even be able to keep from pissing all over yourself. You're nothing but a helpless child. I can do anything I want to you – or your brother – and no one will question me." I swallowed hard. Gozaburo was dead. I'd won. I'd be the one walking out of this world, not him.

I'd almost forgotten Sugoroku was sitting next to me until I caught him waiting for me to finish my sentence. "I heard people call me a child plenty," I said.

He nodded. "I'm sorry. You're right. I forgot. You have every reason to hate the word."

I exhaled a breath I hadn't been aware I was holding and realized: Sugoroku was a grubby, geriatric shopkeeper that I could beat in a duel with my eyes closed and the deck I'd played with when I was ten in my hands – and none of that mattered. I respected him. I wanted him to respect me. It wasn't because Yugi had earned my being polite to his relatives or because Yami would be disappointed if I did anything else – although both were true. It was just there. And so, it meant some undefinable something that Sugoroku hadn't started in on why I was wrong or how I needed to change. He'd understood; he'd even agreed.

"I never thought about that, either… what would have happened… you know… if someone else had adopted us," I mumbled, uncomfortably aware that for someone who could rattle off the specs of a business plan or the parameters of a project in his sleep, I was having a hard time forming complete sentences tonight.

"Kaiba Corporation would have continued making weapons. Many more people would have died," Sugoroku pointed out.

"Do you think that matters to the people who were killed by the weapons Gozaburo created from my designs?" I asked.

"No, but I imagine it matters a great deal to those who were able to go on living because of your actions afterwards. Life's never that simple. It never moves in a straight line."

"But it keeps moving forward. I'll continue to walk its path with what honor I can… and try to balance the scales of Kaiba Corporation's guilt," I said as formally as if I was announcing a new tournament.

Sugoroku nodded. "I have faith in you," he said. We sat there awkwardly for a moment. I glanced at Yami. One hand had wrapped itself around my leg.

"Damn," I said suddenly. "I guess Yugi had a point after all."

Sugoroku looked at me. It suddenly struck me of all the things I didn't understand I could get at least one – admittedly, totally irrelevant – mystery answered.

"Yugi said that this game was like the dress rehearsal for a dance recital. It was important to get things right here, but it was what we did outside that really mattered."

"Yugi said that?" Sugoroku said, smiling proudly.

"Yeah, but there was one thing that made no sense. Since when has Yugi ever been in a dance recital? I may not have lasted long at Domino High, but I was in a couple of gym classes with him. You can't make me believe he ever took a dance class in his life."

I couldn't believe it. The old geezer's eyes twinkled like he was some kind of demented Christmas elf. "Yugi's been very interested in dance, infatuated with it, really… oh, ever since he hit puberty," he said. The man actually giggled.

I glared at him. Sugoroku managed to get his chuckles under control.

"I'm sorry," he said, "but you'll have to ask Yugi about that when you see him. It's his secret, not mine."

His form started to flicker. I was sorry I'd limited the amount of time Non Player Characters could interact with us.

"When you get back, we'll have all the time you want," Sugoroku reminded me.

"When we get back, you won't need to check me out to make sure your grandson survives," I said. I wanted to see what he'd reply.

"You don't believe that's why I'm here."

"When we get back, I'll still be the person who tried to kill you," I added, needing to understand why that didn't seem to matter to him anymore.

"I think you haven't been that person for a while now… but you're the only one who can decide to let him go," he said softly.

When I'd run away from Sugoroku earlier, I'd tried to tell myself he couldn't have really been a part of my dream, that it was impossible. Now he echoed the words he'd said as he'd held me in my dream. "Whatever you decide, I'll be here. Now that I've met you, I'm not disappearing – and you can't make me," he said as he vanished.

* * *

**PEGASUS' NARRATIVE**

My timing, of course, was excellent. I arrived just as they'd completed the wiring on the fourth VR pod. They were arguing over who'd get to use it. Predictably, they all wanted to go. At least I didn't have to worry about the two salarymen. I'm sure they were just as gung-ho as the rest, but I'd seen Mokuba's instructions and they hadn't included running off to virtual worlds. However eager they were to rush to the Kaiba brothers' defense, I was sure they'd obey their commands to the letter.

"How nice to see you've completed it just in time for me," I drawled.

That got them to stop arguing and stare at me instead. I wasn't surprised. I was in a new suit, after all. Red, of course.

"You?" Jounouchi yelped. "We did all the work!"

"Yes. Thank you," I replied.

"Why you?" Honda asked.

"Why not me? I've uploaded cards they'll need if they are to make it back here alive – but I have to activate them, and I can only do that once I'm there."

"You fixed it so they can win?" Honda asked.

"No, of course not. I can only work within the parameters of the game itself or the entire virtual world could collapse – with your friends still inside of it." I laughed. "Do you think there's the slightest chance that Kaiba-boy would have set the game up so that a couple of cards could win it all? But I can and have uploaded new cards. Do any of you think you understand how they work as well as I do?" I paused briefly as I surveyed their petulant faces. "No, I didn't think so."

"That doesn't mean we're stupid enough to let you anywhere near them!" Jounouchi yelled. Hard as it was, I let the obvious come-back on our relative intelligence levels slide.

"This virtual reality world is based on Duel Monsters. Have you forgotten who invented the game?" I asked patiently.

"Kaiba did say once that Pegasus knew more about Duel Monsters than anyone – even him," Honda said grudgingly.

"I'm flattered," I answered. "Millennium Items are involved too – and I can claim some experience there as well."

One of the salarymen surprised me by speaking up. "No one is questioning your expertise. It's your motives that are suspect."

"Yeah! We all know you're as smart as you are crazy, but that doesn't make you trustworthy. You think we've forgotten about Duelist Kingdom and all the shit that went down there?" Jounouchi said.

I was glad I'd left Croquet at the office, but I had a security team on standby. If I called for them they'd be here in minutes, but I was sure that the salarymen had a small army at their disposal and the last thing I wanted was a pitched battle in the Kaiba Corporation computer lab. I glanced casually at the lead salaryman, the one who had spoken. I wished he'd take his sunglasses off so I could see his eyes. It seemed like Kaiba-boy had found a more loyal group that the ones I'd bribed to kidnap Mokuba and kill his older brother.

Of all the people here, my little apricot girl was the one most likely to believe that, despite our early encounters, I didn't mean her friends any harm. I'd bared my soul to her. That had to count for something. And she was – despite the deplorable strain of common sense that ran through her character – a romantic at heart. I looked at her. She was biting her lower lip, her nose was scrunched up. I wished I had the time to sketch such a perfect picture of doubt and confusion.

"Would you believe a solemn vow from me?" I asked her quietly.

Her brow furrowed further but she gave a quick nod. I smiled back, wanting to smooth the lines from her forehead.

"I swear by my hope of Cynthia, I will see the danger contained and your friends safely home."

"Hope of Cynthia? You still have hope?" my little apricot girl asked.

"When life is despair what else is left but hope?" I said. "Please trust me."

"I still don't like it," Jounouchi muttered.

"Believe me, I want them home just as badly as you do. I'd find them a trifle inconvenient otherwise. If you refuse – for admittedly perfectly valid reasons – to trust to my altruism, trust to my self-interest instead… a much better bet, I agree."

The salarymen were staring at Jounouchi and Honda who were glaring at me. I could only be grateful that the old man seemed to be minding the shop today. At this rate we'd be here all day. I sighed. Then two boys stopped scowling at me and looked at each other, undecided. Without his street thug bravado, Jounouchi's face looked as defenseless as a baby owl's.

They turned to my little apricot girl. Perhaps they were wiser than I'd given them credit for. They knew enough to turn, when in doubt, to the nearest, dearest woman in their lives to be their compass. I'd lost my Cynthia and drifted, directionless, ever since.

Anzu nodded at them. They nodded at each other, and then at me. It was like we were at some kind of bobble-head convention.

"Thank you," I said. I meant it. No one had ever given me a greater present.

There were just a couple of things I needed to do. I went to the VR pod and attached Mokuba's laptop.

"What gives?" Honda asked. He was quieter than his bellicose friend, but just as easily ruffled.

"Since we seem to be agreed that I'm going to be trying out your handiwork, I'm sure you won't mind if I check it out and run some routine diagnostics."

I had the access codes. I'd known this moment would come from the second they'd barged into my office lugging Mokuba's laptop. I drew in a breath. I'd been waiting a long time. My adjustments didn't take long. The boys hadn't even had time to become suspicious again when the computer, as annoying as Kaiba-boy himself, picked that moment to announce in its falsely feminine voice, "Changes to virtual reality pod confirmed… card activation process begun… information upload complete."

"There's something you're not telling us," Jounouchi announced, as if it wasn't obvious.

"Oodles and oodles of somethings, my little duelist."

"I'm worried for you," Anzu said.

"Don't be," I answered as gently as I could. "Some people simply can't be fettered by reality."

"Promise me you'll remember to come home," she said.

"You wound me. How could I forget something so easy? Don't worry. I know where my home is." I answered, relieved to see her smile.

I climbed into the VR pod. The transition to Kaiba's virtual world was smooth. I was standing in a field. It was green… welcoming. I breathed in the flower scented air. I had to give Kaiba-boy credit. From the moment we'd started working together I'd been impressed with the raw power of his holograms. He'd added polish since then.

I could sense someone arriving. I expected to see Cynthia dying before me, to hear her last breath, just as I heard it every day in the hiss of the tea kettle, in the soft whistle of the wind.

Instead I was staring at a boy. Under the ice green hair were not-quite familiar blue eyes – Prussian blue instead of cobalt. He was younger than my former protégé, too… young enough to be deceptively cute. I wondered if he'd ever seen Funny Bunny.

"Kaiba-boy?" I asked.

"The original," he replied proudly.

I remembered… when I'd researched the family… there had been a son named Noa. He'd been lost… such a curious word, "lost"… as if the dead have merely been misplaced.

"You startled me. I was expecting to see my wife," I told him.

"Here?" he asked, those deep blue eyes impossibly wide.

"Yes," I said.

"I'm sorry," he said.

I resisted the impulse to pat his head. I'd met Gozaburo Kaiba once, briefly. It had been enough to explain most of his adopted son's personality flaws. It was hard to believe this adorably solemn child was his.

"So the dead really can come back to life," I said, relieved. My trip hadn't been in vain.

"Not entirely. Not really," he said seriously.

"You're here," I pointed out.

"Not totally. You can't touch me. No one can. Ever since I got here. I can't even hold this form for too long."

I drew in a breath, worried. When I'd known Cynthia was going to die, I'd apparently hired the same team Gozaburo had and for the same purpose: to preserve the sum of everything that made her who she was in electronic code. I'd just uploaded it all here.

Now I had a new fear to face. Would Cynthia appear in front of me, but still be as far from me as in death? Would I bring her to life only to see her form flicker like a candle going out, only to see her disappear before I could grab her and hold her to me?

"It's different with my father and the others. They're solid," Noa said, unintentionally relieving my mind of that horrible moment of doubt. There was, as I'd told my little apricot girl, always hope. I'd find Cynthia. I remembered her telling me that she would give anything to stay with me. She would take this chance. She would be real and blessedly solid for me. I knew it. And the child in front of me had just confirmed it was possible. In gratitude, I started to take an interest in the boy.

"You look sturdy enough to me."

"At first I just wanted to fade away," he admitted.

"I'm here," I told him. "After that I have to believe anything's possible. That you could become solid enough to hug… that I can hold my wife in my arms once again. That we can have the life that her death cheated us of."

"It still won't be real," he said softly. I realized with a start that he was trying to protect me from disappointment. "As wonderful as this world is, all it is, is the illusion of life. Nothing more."

"When it's all you have left, illusions are everything," I answered.

I hadn't found Cynthia. But I felt closer to her all the same. I might not have seen her yet, but I could feel her smiling at me.

* * *

.

_**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter.** _

**AUTHOR'S NOTES:** It's striking how personal Kaiba's duels are… he sees visions of both his own past and his past lives… he not only hallucinates, but his hallucinations insult him. Given how intensely personal his duels are it's not surprising that Kaiba, more than any other character, passionately believes that duels hold lessons on how he is to live his life. So I think his reaction to the challenge in the last chapter would be to try to decipher what meaning he can draw from it.

Originally the scene with Sugoroku was part of the last chapter because I wanted the scene that started with Kaiba's dream to come full circle and end with Kaiba in real life, just like in his dream, trying to prove to himself that Sugoroku both cares for and accepts him – and would do so even if they all weren't in this game.

 **Pegasus Note:** It's funny… I think Pegasus genuinely likes Anzu in this story and that he found it comforting to talk to her about Cynthia. But I also think he's smart enough – and manipulative enough – to know that engaging her sympathies might come in handy. So even though I wrote the chapter I'm not sure where the line gets drawn between honest affection and self-interest – or if it's more a matter that this is one of those times when both can co-exist.

 **Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my Live Journal account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated.

_As always, comments would be adored…_

_  
_


	39. Flaming Eternity

**CHAPTER 39: FLAMING ETERNITY**

_Coming back from the dead has such a horror-show sound to it. The phrase carries images of Frankenstein lurching through the countryside with a horde of pitchfork wielding villagers in hot pursuit or of zombies sprouting from their graves, trailing rotting flesh and cemetery earth as they wander mindlessly through the city streets they once walked down._

_To put a more modern – not to mention a more positive – spin on the whole coming to life phenomena, there isn't a self-help book on the market that doesn't talk about spiritual, emotional, psychic or even financial rebirth._

_And then there's Yu-Gi-Oh! which manages to both ask and evade all the age old questions of life and death._

**NOA'S NARRATIVE**

Mokuba was thinking about me. It was like a beacon, one I was glad to follow home. When I arrived, Mokuba was with Yugi and an old guy in faded, ancient robes like a wizard or something. It was like looking at an older version of Yugi – one that was just as short, if a bit chunkier. Mokuba had told me that Pegasus had managed to use the Non Player Character function so they could talk to people outside. I hadn't seen it in action though before now.

Mokuba didn't turn when I appeared. He hadn't been trying to call me, not deliberately. I guess seeing Yugi had made him think about his own family. It was one more proof I was part of that. I smiled.

I watched them in silence. The old man and Yugi were both talking at the same time, each answering questions before the other one had been quite finished asking them. I had the entire world's library stored in my (for lack of a more accurate word) head. Tolstoy had written that happy families are all alike. I hadn't seen enough of them to form my own conclusion, but judging by the slightly glazed look in Mokuba's eyes I was betting Yugi and his grandfather weren't saying anything they hadn't said before.

Mokuba turned and saw me. The polite look on his face vanished, replaced by genuine joy, as he ran towards me. He stopped, as always, just before he reached me as he remembered I wasn't solid enough to hold on to. I though about what Pegasus had said – that anything was possible. Maybe he was right. Maybe I had something to hope for besides the chance to fade away to nothingness. Mokuba was going to leave. I was going to help. But maybe I'd get to hug him goodbye.

"I'm so glad you're here!" Mokuba exclaimed as he introduced me to Yugi's grandfather.

Sugoroku smiled at me like he had no idea that I'd kidnapped his grandson and tried to steal his body, although the measuring look in his eyes told me he'd heard it all. I thought about all the stuff Seto had pulled and wondered how he handled meeting people who had every reason to hate you, even if they were nice about it.

Mokuba turned back to Sugoroku. He'd probably been waiting for a chance to interrupt. "So you're sure Nisama's okay? And Yami, too," he added as an afterthought.

"They're fine," Sugoroku answered patiently. I wondered how many times Mokuba had asked.

"Everything's alright?" Mokuba asked again.

"Better than all right," Sugoroku reassured him. "It hasn't been easy for your brother. He designed this game to help him overcome the things – the anger, the distrust – that have been holding him back. But he's finally winning. He's getting stronger with each challenge. He's changing, he's… growing up."

Mokuba and I looked at each other, puzzled by Sugoroku's serious tone.

"But that's a good thing, right?" Mokuba asked.

"Very good!" Sugoroku said, but he looked uncomfortable, like he wished he'd never started the conversation in the first place. He added, "But when you meet, it'll be so easy for your brother to slide back into old habits. He's going to need your help."

"Of course I'll help!" Mokuba said indignantly. He turned to me and asked, "Does Nisama look any different to you?"

I shrugged. I had no idea what the old guy was going on about. "We fight a lot less," I offered.

Mokuba grinned. "Cool! I knew once you got to know each other, you'd be friends just like brothers should be."

I grinned back, hoping he didn't notice that my smile looked a bit helpless. Seto was so totally marked by my father that it did make him feel like family in an odd way. And we'd agreed that we weren't enemies, but I'd never worked out if that made us friends. I figured Seto had as little experience as me in the friendship department, anyway, so I decided to go along with Mokuba's definitions. "Yeah, friends," I said.

Sugoroku smiled and relaxed; he was probably relieved that Mokuba had stopped asking questions. I still didn't get it, but Seto was safe and Mokuba was smiling. Anything else couldn't be all that important.

Then the old guy stiffened up again, like someone who'd gotten though one difficult task only to remember he had another one still ahead. He cleared his throat and said, "You remember the unfinished virtual reality pod? Isono, Honda, Jounouchi and Fubeta found a way to complete it."

"Why didn't you tell us you were working on it?" Mokuba asked.

"We didn't want to raise your hopes until we knew we could do it."

I snorted. "And Seto's flunkeys were probably afraid he'd order them to stop messing with his stuff if he knew."

"They're not flunkeys! They're my friends!" Mokuba said.

I opened my mouth, then shut it. Mokuba was mad at me, like he'd been when I'd kidnapped him. I didn't want him to think I was still like that.

"I'm sorry. I didn't think," I said. It was true. I wasn't used to thinking about the people who worked for Kaiba Corporation as anything but part of the equipment that made it run. "I'm sorry," I repeated. I didn't know what else to say. The truth was, I was never going to look at people the way Mokuba did. Mokuba and I might have been brothers, but we hadn't been raised the same.

"I'm not mad," Mokuba said. "Honest. You're my brother. That's the most important thing to me. But… didn't you care about any of the people who worked at the mansion or at Kaiba Corporation? Weren't any of them special or nice?"

I knew the answer Mokuba wanted, but he was also trusting me to be honest.

"Of course they were nice. They were paid to be friendly."

Mokuba frowned at that, but not like he had before; he was puzzled, not angry. "Nisama used to say the same thing when he was telling me not to trust anyone. I didn't understand then. I do now. For all their smiles, the staff was Gozaburo's; they all looked the other way when…" Mokuba stopped short. He looked at me, his eyes suddenly bright with tears. "I thought your father never hurt you… well, not like he did Seto."

"He didn't. But he still was who he was. He loved me. He did," I insisted, even though Mokuba hadn't been arguing. "But I was still his heir, just like Seto was. Even if the method was different, the lesson was still the same."

I swallowed when I realized Yugi and Sugoroku were staring at us. I'd forgotten they were there. Sugoroku's smile was sadder than before, but this time it reached his eyes.

Sugoroku cleared his throat. "We used the VR pod to send help," he said.

"You mean someone's here? With us? Who? Jounouchi?" Yugi shot the questions faster than Sugoroku could answer.

"Pegasus," Sugoroku said.

"Pegasus is here?" Yugi repeated. It came out as a question.

"He said he was activating cards you can use. Hasn't he made contact with you?" Sugoroku's voice trailed off; his forehead was creased with worry. The way he was obviously second guessing himself made me nervous.

"I met him," I said. "He was looking for his wife. She's dead, like me."

"We know," Yugi said quietly, like it hurt him to agree that I was dead.

"No. I mean she's just like me. Pegasus had her preserved in computer code and uploaded her here. I liked Pegasus. He seemed nice."

They stared at me, like three stone statues, with identically unreadable expressions on their faces.

"What gives?" I asked.

"Uh… Pegasus had this tournament, Duelists Kingdom," Yugi said. I was a little scared that Yugi was the one who'd managed to choke out a sentence first, not Mokuba.

"I know. I saw part of it. I couldn't find a record of how it ended anywhere though," I said. I'd thought at the time the total lack of information had been odd. Now I wondered what the hell had gone on there.

"Yeah… well, Pegasus knew about Kaiba's plan to create a virtual world and he knew about the Millennium Items. He wanted both. He figured he could use them to recreate his wife," Yugi continued.

"Okay… what aren't you telling me?" I asked.

"He needed leverage," Mokuba said, his voice as hard and businesslike as Seto's – or mine before I'd met him.

"And that's where you came in, isn't it?" I asked. I should have known I wouldn't have been the only person to try and use Mokuba to get to Seto. "Damn," I said, feeling sick. "I liked him."

"It all worked out okay, kind of. Maybe he's nicer now. Everyone back at the computer lab must have thought so," Mokuba said in a rush. It would have reassured me more if I didn't know that making me feel better was more important to Mokuba than the truth.

"None of that matters!" I said.

"Yeah, it does," Yugi said. "Everyone deserves a second chance to do the right thing. That's what this game is all about – and maybe it's Pegasus' turn. My friends trusted him and that's enough for me. You shouldn't write him off either, at least not until you've heard him out."

Sugoroku clapped Yugi on the shoulder. "Every time I see you, I'm prouder and prouder to be your grandfather," he said.

Yugi blushed and ducked his head.

I tried to match their smiles as I said, "Great. So there's just one little question left: which one of us gets to break the news to Seto?"

They laughed and relaxed, just like I knew they would. When I left though, I knew exactly where I was going.

Pegasus took one look at my face. "You've seen Seto… no, Mokuba." It was a conclusion, not a question.

"Yugi told me to ask you about Duelist Kingdom."

"I see."

"Mokuba said it wasn't that bad." I'd meant to sound like I was conducting a business meeting, like the answer didn't matter. Instead it came out high-pitched and whiny. Why did my voice sound like a kid's at all the wrong moments?

Pegasus smiled at that but it wasn't the goofy grin I'd seen when he'd arrived.

"Ah, the resilience of youth. Mokuba is wrong – or he's being surprisingly kind. It was very, very bad. I had the Millennium Eye once. When I sacrificed my own I was given a vision of a world where Cynthia and I could be together again. I knew Kaiba-boy could create… this," he said waving a hand at the flower filled meadow. Perfume tickled my nose.

"Go on," I said, glaring impatiently at the waving sunflowers surrounding us.

"And I stole Mokuba, Kaiba-boy, and Sugoroku's souls to make it happen. Or I tried to. I failed."

I nodded. I'd known something like this was coming from the moment Mokuba had reassured me that everything had worked out okay. It hurt anyway. Pegasus was the first new person I'd met aside from the horror shows hanging out with my father. I'd liked him. Seeing him so desperate to find his wife made me wonder if my dad had felt like that once. I guess Pegasus was more like him than I'd figured. I started to turn away.

"I was desperate. I was wrong," he said quietly.

I swallowed, trying not to think about how much those two sentences had applied to me back when I'd tried to do the same thing to my brother.

I faced Pegasus. "So how come Mokuba and Seto trust you now?"

"They don't. Oh, Seto doesn't count in this – I doubt he trusts anyone, even himself."

"And Mokuba? He gave you the access codes to get in here – and to meddle with this world."

"It's hard to tell what goes on behind those guileless eyes. Anyone who can help his brother build a theme park of death then turn around and look so delightfully innocent is a force to be reckoned with. Did he trust me when he shoved Kaiba-boy's computer into Jounouchi's arms? Or did he know himself and his deficits in the trust department well enough to leave the decision – literally – in others' hands?"

"You're here. Someone must have believed in you," I pointed out.

"I don't know that anyone did except for my little apricot girl, and I mean to live up to her faith." He bent down so we were at eye level and said, "I'm not asking for trust… or forgiveness." He straightened up. "Give me the credit of knowing when I've thrown something away."

I nodded. Despite everything, my first impression remained. I liked him.

* * *

**YAMI'S NARRATIVE**

We headed out early the next morning. Kaiba, with his longer stride was, as always, slightly in front of me, his gaze fixed resolutely forwards – even though neither of us were sure if we were finally headed in the right direction or not. I picked up my pace so that I could walk beside him.

"Last night was amazing," I said to Kaiba.

Unbelievably, the oaf smirked. "I'm sure I can be just as 'amazing' again."

I rolled my eyes. "I was talking about earlier in the night and you know it – or you should. The fear of what you could become… it's one of the things that drew you to create this game, and you met it head on. That was the true victory."

Kaiba received compliments on his technical expertise, his business acumen – and apparently his lovemaking skills – with a trademark smirk. Praise for who he was rather than what he'd accomplished inevitably brought out a challenging glare that managed to be aggressive and oddly vulnerable all at the same time.

"It took courage," I continued softly. "And you're so used to facing life that way you don't even recognize it."

Kaiba ducked his head slightly. His bangs fell in front of his eyes as always, hiding them.

We walked on in comfortable silence. After the upheaval of the night before, the day was calm. We were almost through the afternoon when Kaiba stopped short, examined the rocks surrounding a small waterfall intently and said, "I recognize this spot. It's where the compass stopped working."

"Maybe it's an omen that we're finally on the right track," I said.

Kaiba snorted but kept going. We both picked up the pace a bit, excited by the thought of seeing our partners again.

I felt a sudden longing for Yugi. I had been without him for weeks. I wanted him. Not to protect him. He needed that as little as I. We both knew that now, or I hoped we did. This was more basic. I missed him.

"I never thought Yugi and I would be apart for this long," I mumbled.

"Why? It's not like you're joined at the hip," Kaiba said sharply.

I stared at him, puzzled. I'd said something as simple as that I missed my partner. But for once Kaiba must have been as attuned to my thoughts as Yugi, because before I could answer he added, "I get it. I miss Mokuba like hell. It's got nothing to do with you. It's just always there."

"Everyone thinks Yugi is the weaker one. They don't get understand. He's what makes everything else possible."

Kaiba nodded. I smiled. Of course he knew just how I felt.

"You haven't talked about Mokuba much in days. It hurts too much to even mention his name, doesn't it?" I asked.

Kaiba looked at me as though facing a new challenge, scanned my face as intensely as if it was the site of his next battle.

"Yeah. It's like losing part – the best part – of myself. I remember waking up from that damn coma to find him gone. I'd thought I'd finished piecing together my heart but I still felt hollow inside. It wasn't until I held him that the world made sense again."

"Yugi was once my world. I saw through his eyes, spoke with his mouth; the air I breathed was filtered by his lungs. Even my thoughts…" I remembered looking at Anzu, knowing that as much as I loved her I'd never desire her, but at the same time my heart beat with Yugi's need and it was hard to resist its pull. "Now I just miss him – not because I need him to be part of the world, but because I want him by my side while I face it. Yugi taught me how to be human again."

Kaiba nodded. In a way Mokuba had done the same for him. But when he spoke, his words were stiff and awkward. "I can see why Yugi has your respect and loyalty. He deserves it."

Stilted as his words were, they warmed me. "He's special to me – just like Mokuba is to you."

"Do you really think of Yugi as a brother?" Kaiba asked. Somehow his words were faintly challenging.

I'd been a part of Yugi, but I'd never stopped to think about our relationship before. "I don't know," I said. "I'm not sure what it feels like, having a brother. I can't remember if I had one before."

I frowned. Could I be missing such a big part of my life and not even know it?

Kaiba had faced his fear last night. He'd done it with a courage that had stolen my breath. I knew what my own fear was: the void at the center of my being… the emptiness that lay in wait every time I looked inward and tried to remember who I was. I wanted a future more and more each day. But how could I hope for a future without having a past?

Was it another omen that I had only two Millennium Items left untried? The Key, which could look into people's hearts and Isis' Necklace, which could see the future.

It was a relief to stop for the night… to be sure of my next move.

"It's time for me to face the last two Millenniums Items," I told Kaiba.

He turned to face me, back straight, hands clenched into fists at his side. "Are you still so hung up on the past?" he demanded. "Living isn't enough for you, is it?"

"This isn't living. If you took that Puzzle off, I'd disappear as if I'd never existed – and I still don't know why. I've changed so much since this game started, but that still remains. Whoever I was… the pharaoh I saw worshipped by his followers… the murderer from Bakura's revenge-fueled imagination… it doesn't matter. It's not me. Not anymore. But until I know why, I'm still chained to the past, just like I'm still tied to the Puzzle around your neck."

"And you're willing to risk your life to get answers," Kaiba said. His voice was quieter now.

"Yes." I paused. "You've pulled me back from the brink before, but I have to see this through. Whatever happens – don't interfere."

Kaiba smiled grimly. "You expect me to stand by and watch you destroy yourself?" he asked, echoing my words from the night before.

"I couldn't do that," I admitted. "But I think you can. It's what I need from you."

I reached into the backpack and pulled out the two Millennium Items. Like the last time when Shadi had used the Key to enter my soul, I saw a maze of stairs that turned in on themselves, doors that opened onto passages that led in circles. I ran from door to door. Each time I opened one I saw another scene from my life, frozen in time. All the familiar, sometimes painful moments from the only life I remembered… the early penalty games… Death-T… standing on Pegasus's tower facing Kaiba, ready to kill him, ready to throw away Yugi's belief in me before it had truly taken hold, before it had had time to ground me to this life and these people.

Suddenly I saw each scene differently, as if a third eye had opened that looked beneath the surface. I saw Kaiba, sitting sightlessly in his wheelchair after Death-T; I saw him facing me on Pegasus' tower, daring me to slit his throat with his cards; I saw him battling himself last night. It was there in front of me… his determination, his short-sighted, self-destructive pride, his devotion… all the things I had always known.

I saw Jounouchi in those first weeks after we'd met; I saw the wariness in his eyes as he faced something he didn't understand warm to a friendship that was beyond understanding. I saw Anzu and myself sitting in a diner and I realized for the first time why Yugi had suddenly switched places with me that day – he'd instantly seen the infatuation that I'd needed a Millennium Item to recognize. I saw myself in the instant after Yugi had assembled the Puzzle: full of emptiness and power. I thanked Yugi anew that it was mercy, not ambition, that had filled the void.

I opened another door and turned to the ancient past… to Seto, the lover who had gone on to live in my place, to Mahaado, the friend who gave his life for mine… to all my friends and councilors… to Akunadin, evil eating him from the inside like termites attacking the hull of a boat, destroying it unseen. When I'd looked in the Puzzle, I'd seen Akunadin riding away from a flaming village; the village of Kul Elna.

I still didn't know my past… but I'd arrived at the center of my heart. The flames at its core were pure, untainted by the murder of children. I felt weak-kneed with relief. Akunadin's words fell into place and suddenly made sense. If Kaiba's twin demons were anger and bitterness, Akunadin's were jealousy and ambition, and unlike Kaiba, he'd made no attempt to check them. He'd destroyed Kul Elna. He'd told himself it had been for his son. He'd lied. This destruction had never been done in my name, my father's or even Seto's. The monster Bakura had carried with him through the millennia wasn't me.

I laughed. The Key hadn't told me anything I hadn't already known. I'd had devoted friends. I'd loved my high priest. He'd had faults, then as well as now, so had I… but they didn't include the destruction of innocents.

I turned from the Millennium Key, and my past, to the Millennium Necklace. I was hoping for a vision like the ones Isis had had; I wanted a glimpse of my future. Instead I was instantly surrounded by a darkness so profound it swamped my senses until nothing was left. I pinched myself and couldn't feel it, as if both my fingers and the arm they touched had gone numb, or worse, that it was only wistful thinking that I had a body to move at all. This wasn't the future. This was infinity and I was fading away from my own insignificance in the face of an endless emptiness. I opened my mouth and screamed silently.

This wasn't the future; this was death; a darkness so impenetrable that it separated me from the world and the people I'd grown to love. I wondered at my own presumption in daring to grab for a second chance, a second life. Maybe the gods had ordained that my journey was destined to end here. Kaiba's voice – or the memory of it – penetrated the heavy silence enveloping me. Once again I could hear him telling me that if god stood in my way, I should defeat him and move on. I felt my lips shape into a smile.

With that memory, the darkness became one last insistent puzzle I had to solve; it became another game to win.

I thought back to the person I'd been, trying to find something to hold on to, something I could use to break through this impassible wall. I thought of all I'd learned about my past life since using the Millennium Items, but the darkness seemed to gather and thicken with each memory I recalled, until I was at the brink of defeat. Once again, I heard Kaiba's voice, that day I'd stood in his office and watched him bring Pegasus' latest cards to life. We'd watched the Phoenix Reborn die and return – and Kaiba had asked me if that was what it had felt like to be reborn.

I hadn't had an answer. I'd been a ghost, sharing Yugi's world through his generosity.

I wanted to know what it felt like to be reborn. As I'd told Kaiba, fire wasn't death… it was passion… it was desire. I felt it run through me. Pegasus had uploaded Phoenix Reborn into this world, but the card hadn't been activated and I'd never been able to summon it. Each time I'd tried to touch it, tried to add it to my deck, my hand had passed through as though it was a phantom. It had existed to taunt me, just like the Puzzle hanging around Kaiba's neck taunted me, reminding me that no matter what I pretended I was nothing but a ghost.

I snarled in anger, felt the fire return to my body as I called in the unsummonable card. I reached out, willing it to come to me, and for the first time, felt phoenix feathers slide through my fingers.

I drew back my hand as the bird turned gray and then transparent, becoming as wraithlike as I felt. As I waited for it to burst into triumphant life again I understood the price of rebirth. Fire needs something to feed on. New life must devour the old. If I touched the phoenix again, if I joined with it, if I let it carry me into the future, it would burn away my ties to the past. The few hard fought memories I'd collected would be all I'd know of the world I'd been born into and had once ruled. I'd never see my father's face or hear my mother's laugh. I'd never know if I'd once had a Mokuba of my own. I'd never truly know the man I'd been.

But I could become the man I was meant to be.

I drew in a breath and reached out to Phoenix Reborn, grabbing hold of its feathers once again. I let its flames wash over me, burning away the might-have-beens. He grew large enough that I could climb on his fiery back as he soared into the air, carrying me with him. His music surrounded me, drowning out the voices of the past.

I was Yugi's friend. I was Kaiba's lover. I was Yami. I was finally, gloriously, myself. I threw back my head and laughed.

The Phoenix Reborn had disappeared. I was back in the woods with Kaiba. I was alive.

"Yami!" Kaiba yelled, running up to me.

"Yes. I'm Yami. It may kill us, but this is an amazing game, Seto."

Once again, Kaiba ducked his head. For an instant he looked like Yugi on the receiving end of a compliment. When Kaiba faced me though, his smirk was firmly in place. "Of course it is. I designed it."

I drew in a breath and reached up to him. Kaiba leaned in slightly. But I wasn't planning on kissing him, at least, not yet. There was one last rite of passage to complete before I could march into this new life. I grabbed the heavy chain securing my Puzzle. I paused to untangle it from the thinner one that anchored Kaiba's locket, then lifted the Puzzle from Kaiba's neck and slipped it around my own. I laughed again and the sound was as triumphant as the phoenix's song. I was still here, standing for the first time on my own two feet. I'd mastered the Puzzle. It was no longer a prison or even a home. It was simply a keepsake, a memento of my time with Yugi. It was mine.

Kaiba stared at me, his mouth slightly open, as we absorbed our new reality. Then he grinned. "I always told you that you were real. Now do you finally concede that I was right?" he said smugly.

I laughed at his arrogance, at his matter of fact acceptance of my new freedom. Then I realized that this wasn't a shock, not to him – that where I had doubted most, he had always believed in my solidity – and my joy sharpened abruptly into desire. I'd claimed the Puzzle and with it, my life. Now Kaiba stood in front of me, still bending slightly towards me. His scent, which reminded me of battles and duels and friendship and desperation, was intoxicating. He was one more thing I wanted on this night of triumph. I did what came naturally. I reached out a hand to cup his cheek, to grab the back of his neck, to pull his head towards mine, to claim his lips.

A moment ago he'd been leaning in eagerly. As I touched him, he jumped back in surprise. He stared at me with the wide-eyed look that had accompanied all his losses in all our duels, before he remembered to hide his shock behind a furious glare.

I'd been flushed with desire; now anger was heating my face just as thoroughly.

"You bastard! You can believe that I'd gain a whole body easier than that I'd still want yours afterwards!" I yelled.

"Don't give me that. For the first time in your life you could go anywhere. What was I supposed to expect?" Kaiba shot back.

"You were supposed to know I'd choose to stay here with you! After everything we've been through together, after all the nights we've shared… are you going to stand here and tell me that this whole time you've been assuming it was all a side effect of the Puzzle? That without it I wouldn't want you? How dare you think I'm that weak and easily manipulated, that I know my own mind so little?"

"No! I don't think any of that and you know it! Even when we were enemies I admired your strength. Now it's in front of me every day, every night, every time you call my name or touch my body. I've never beaten you in a duel, not a fair one. Last night I would have lost to myself except for you pushing me, like you always have, to be my best. I know all that. It's just… when I saw you standing there, able to go anywhere, to be with… I know how much you miss Yugi… I just figured…" his voice trailed off.

"That if I was free I'd want to be free of you as well," I finished for him. "Just when are you going to stop playing this game of starting to offer your trust only to pull back at the last moment?"

I didn't wait for an answer. I yanked him down to my level, more roughly this time. I still didn't kiss him, not on the lips. Instead I pushed his collar out of the way and fastened my mouth on the spot where his neck rose from his shoulders. I felt the familiar flush of desire, almost unrecognizable beneath the anger riding me. I wanted to mark him, to leave an imprint. Then I tasted soft flesh beneath my teeth. He moaned as they worked his skin. My anger vanished. Only need remained. I took a half step back, fighting for breath, and looked up into his face.

Kaiba's eyes were impossibly dark. My hands had been clutching his hair, holding him to me. Now one hand slid down to his chest to rest at his heart. "I've been inside your soul. I've shattered it. I've seen everything you're so convinced I should hate you for and I'm still here." I pressed harder as if I could reach into his chest and grab it.

"If it would help, I'd let you do it again," Kaiba said.

I rubbed my thumb against the red mark forming on his neck. I smiled at his sharp intake of breath and the way his tongue came out without his being aware of it to touch the top of his lips in unconscious invitation. But I didn't want him to respond to my anger, for all that was the language he best understood. I wanted more.

Kaiba kept expecting our disastrous first meetings to outweigh everything I'd learned about him since; he kept expecting the past to win out against the future. He didn't understand: now that I had the power to attack, even at my angriest, all I wanted to do was defend. I could feel his doubt, his remorse for not being able to take those final steps, for not being able to give me everything I wanted from him, as if it was my own.

Kaiba was right. I could walk away. I had that power now. The Puzzle was around my neck; its chain was sinking into my shoulders. But if I did, every step I took away from him would be a step away from myself, a step away from my heart, from the future I'd fought so hard to reach. And every step would be cursed with a newfound loss.

"The Puzzle is around my neck, not yours, but the bond between us cannot be dissolved so easily," I promised.

For a third time, I pulled him towards me. He came willingly. I returned to deepen the mark at the base of his neck. I wanted him to feel it every time his collar chafed against it; I wanted to see it peeking out from the neck of his shirt every time I looked at him. Every time he doubted, I wanted him to remember.

It wasn't enough. I opened his shirt, ripping half of the buttons in my haste, and pushed it and his jacket to lie in a crumpled heap on the ground. I left only the locket which was as much a part of him as the Puzzle was of me.

I followed the line of his now abandoned shirt collar with my mouth to the place where it would lead into the row of buttons on the shirt he'd be wearing again in the morning, biting and sucking as I went, until there was a line of blemishes down his chest, detouring only to tease the pinpricks of his nipples. He was going to feel me on his skin every time he moved, every time a seam hit a place where my lips had lingered and burned. Kaiba screamed my name with each long bite, with each time I took his flesh into my mouth. And each uninhibited yell, like the phoenix song, carried me forward.

It wasn't enough. I was wild to consume him as thoroughly as the flames had burned away my past, leaving me with only this present, this moment here with him. I pushed Kaiba to the ground and straddled him, pausing in my return to his body only to struggle out of my clothes and to tear off the rest of his. Kaiba's pale skin stood out against the green and brown leaves that lay like a carpet on the forest floor; his hair had the same russet touches.

I had started this in anger; he had been trying to atone for his doubts in the only way he knew, by offering himself. We'd both been carried far past those opening moves. I finally kissed him on the mouth. He writhed under me; without sound, his desire could find relief only in movement.

I lifted my head again and snarled, "I didn't fight my way into my own body, Seto Kaiba, just to walk away from yours. I'm here. I love you. Deal with it."

I'd accused Kaiba of a lack of trust. Now he was lying beneath me, eyes dark with desire. His eagerness to be my lover, even if he couldn't quite believe in my love, was declared in the way his hands gripped my hips, in the pliant tension in the body under my own. Kaiba had never dealt in words, not solely, not for anything that was this important.

As I leaned forward to claim his mouth again, to prove that we belonged together, my Puzzle chimed against the locket on his chest. It was the only thing besides my body that I truly owned. Even the clothes lying discarded on the forest floor were Yugi's choice. I yanked the Puzzle from around my neck and slipped the chain back around Kaiba's. It rested, once again, atop the locket hiding Mokuba's picture.

"Yami…" he said, my name somewhere between a moan and a vow.

I smiled. "Yes. I could hear my name forever, now that I finally believe in it."

Earlier anger had lain in wait beneath my desire, now I saw regret staining his. "Yami… I…" His voice broke off as I pressed a finger against his lips.

I drew in a breath as he sucked on it, then I said, "Don't say a word. No promises of atonement, no vows. I want nothing from you right now but my name."

He shook his head defiantly, almost spitting out my finger and said, "I'm glad I'm the person you want to share this with."

"You have no idea how beautiful you are – or how loved," I said, as I finally moved to claim him.

It felt like all the times I'd taken the Millennium Items, the same sense of weightlessness, the same sense of rushing towards obliteration, towards a place where I could no longer hold on to myself. But now I had a partner. And I wasn't hurtling towards an unknown void but to a haven where only Kaiba and I existed, where this new body I'd just gained was joined with his; my identity not lost, but given to this melding.

I still felt like I was holding the Millennium Key, like I was seeing beyond the surface. I was a part not just of Kaiba's body but of every gloriously reckless and conflicted iota of his soul. And I was offering my newly created self in turn. It was as if the phoenix's flight had never ended. I was still being carried, weightless and free, rushing to meet life as if it was a lover's embrace, and the bonds that held me to it were as strong and unrelenting as Kaiba's arms.

I screamed his name, a sound that rivaled a dragon's roar, as sensation returned. I wasn't weightless, I wasn't floating ethereally through space. I was here, on the forest floor with Kaiba. That rushing, driving feeling remained, but now it was bound to this time and place, to this moment, to this man. I was suddenly aware that everything I'd fought for was in my hands, suddenly achingly aware of my body, of our mingled screams, our melded bodies. Suddenly aware that the act of giving and taking, of identity and union, was one and the same. It was everything.

We'd fallen out of some formless space to rest on the ground again, and being grounded was a wonderful place to be. I lay atop Kaiba as the fire died down, feeling his heart beat under my hand. I listened to the sound of our breathing returning to normal as the echoes of the phoenix's song faded in my ears.

And I knew: this was rebirth.

* * *

.

_**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter and for much-needed encouragement.**_

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Although the game is about facing the challenges in your life, sometimes the challenges the characters have to face aren't the ones they imagined going in. Kaiba created this game to rid himself of his demons of anger, hatred and bitterness. But he never imagined that learning to trust and to let people in would play such a big part in that. Similarly, Yami wanted to find his memories; he felt that only knowing who he had been could make him feel complete – only to discover that determining who he is, is a far greater challenge.

**Noa and Pegasus Note:** One thing that's fun about writing fanfiction is that it gives you the chance to bring characters together who didn't get to interact in canon. In the case of the unlikely duo of Noa and Pegasus, it's fun to explore how Pegasus might look to someone who doesn't know his history.

**Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my Live Journal account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated.

_As always, comments would be adored…_


	40. Invincible Fortress

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** One of Anzu's many unauthorized after-school jobs was as an usher at Death-T.

 **Reminder:** NPC stands for Non-Player Character

* * *

**CHAPTER 40: INVINCIBLE FORTRESS**

_If all those millennia ago (give or take a few hundred years), Yami and Seto had lived in ancient Rome instead of Egypt, they might have grown up hearing of Damon and Pythias, those bestest buds for whom friendship and oath-keeping was more important than life. But even the Romans, who had four gods in charge of faithfulness, honor and oath-keeping, never managed to come up with one for useless, unwanted self-sacrifice, or a deity that could protect self-denying dolts from their own bad judgment._

**YAMI'S NARRATIVE**

I woke up to see the Puzzle around Kaiba's neck. For a moment I wondered if last night had been a dream… if I'd never challenged the last two Millennium Items… if I'd never won the right to my own body.

Then I remembered. Last night I'd looped the Puzzle back around Kaiba's neck; it had been my first decision. He'd needed to know we were still bound together more than I'd needed the proof I was free. I felt safe leaving my Puzzle, like my desires, in his hands. Kaiba had believed in my solidity before I'd learned to do so myself.

We started walking once more. Kaiba stretched, opened one button on his shirt and adjusted his collar. I'd wanted Kaiba to be reminded of last night – and of me – every time his clothing rubbed against the bites I'd left as a mark of my passage across his body. But I'd been caught in my own trap. I felt dizzy and breathless every time I glanced at his neck and remembered tasting his flesh so deeply I'd left a record of it on his skin, remembered breathing him in and finally taking him… as if I could absorb his being into my soul.

The longer we marched the more sure I became that we were on the right track. The landscape looked new. We were seeing NPCs again. They reminded me of Yugi; I could imagine him waving back each time they appeared. Kaiba, of course, groaned every time he saw them. Once, when it looked like a pair of hikers were going to pass us by on a narrow path, Kaiba speeded up until they faded into the background. He couldn't stand to be overtaken, even by his own imaginary characters.

We kept up the brisk pace throughout the morning, stopping when we reached the edge of a large lake.

"We've never been here before," I said to Kaiba, hoping that the game had decided we'd wandered in circles long enough.

He nodded. "We've finally reached the center of the land mass." He pointed to a small island in the middle of the lake. An even smaller shack took up most of the available space. "That's the first safe house we've come across."

He pulled up a map and breathed a sigh of relief when it was clear we could track our progress once again.

"Here's this safe house," Kaiba said, pointing. "Based on Noa's description, Mokuba and Yugi are here," he added as he gestured two houses away. "They're heading in our direction. If we stay on track, we should catch up to them in a day or two."

His knees buckled slightly. He inhaled then exhaled just as quickly, over and over, before forcing his breathing to return to its normal pace.

As he straightened, I jumped into his arms, unable to do more than repeat his name. My eyes stung with unshed tears. I blinked them back, then gave up and let them fall. I felt Kaiba's hand play with my hair.

"It's going to be okay, Yami," he said.

I wiped my face against Kaiba's coat. "Better than okay. It'll be wonderful!" I said as I stepped back. I was surprised by the grim look on his face, by the tension in his body.

"We need to go to that safe house," he said.

I would have expected Kaiba to press on, ignoring even the need to sleep now that he knew that Mokuba was near.

"All right," I answered. If whatever was happening with Kaiba was important enough to delay his reunion with his brother, I would go along with it.

"First, we need to call Noa," he added.

As Noa appeared Kaiba said, "Tell Mokuba we're three safe houses away. Make sure Yugi stays the full allotment of time in the next safe house. If they keep on their present course, we'll catch up to them at the one after that."

Noa nodded. "I'll make sure they know. Hopefully when you meet up you can find a way to get Mokuba out of here safely," he said. His small face was sad but determined.

"I'll keep him safe. I promise. You don't have to worry that your effort will be wasted through my carelessness," Kaiba said.

"Thank you," Noa replied, a hint of shyness in his voice. When we'd met Noa in his virtual world it had been impossible for any of us except Yugi to truly think of him as a young boy. It was getting easier with every visit.

"The same," Kaiba replied.

They stood there, half smiling at each other, tied by an understanding that ran deeper than their shared agenda. I looked from one to the other as the silence began to take on weight. They shared so many things beyond their eerily similar features: their arrogance, the way they treated everyone around them as tools to be used and discarded. But the pressures that had caused them to break into almost identical shards had been so different. Noa had been raised to believe he was better than anyone else, that other people existed to serve him. Kaiba had spent his life fighting for everything he had, and had met so few people along the way who hadn't tried to do the same to him. And now both Noa and Kaiba were struggling to change.

There was another similarity: they wore the same look of determination, had the same eagerness to do whatever it took to see their loved ones safe.

"Pegasus is here," Noa announced abruptly, breaking the silence.

"What? How did he get in here? What's he after?" Kaiba said, his voice getting louder with each rushed question.

"Yugi's friends and your employees completed your unfinished VR pod…" Noa began.

"How the hell did Pegasus sneak past my security and steal it?" Kaiba roared.

"He didn't. According to Sugoroku, Yugi's friends agreed to let him take it."

"What? Just how blind and deluded are they?"

"Seto!" I exclaimed.

"What? You can't pretend you're happy with this turn of events!"

"No. It worries me as much as you. But Pegasus _has_ been helping. He's the reason we've been able to talk to Sugoroku at all. If Jounouchi gave up his chance to come to our aid, he must have had his reasons," I pointed out.

Kaiba laughed. "Talk about grasping at straws."

"Pegasus said he had cards he could activate if he was here. He promised they would help you survive and get home," Noa said. His voice rose at the end of his sentence, turning it into a question.

"Cards? What cards?" I asked.

"I don't know. He just said Seto had been working on them," Noa said.

I drew in a breath, suddenly dizzy.

"Yami!" Kaiba called as he ran over to me. I leaned against him, shaken.

"Seto… when I used those last two Millennium Items… I was dying. I could feel my soul dissolving. I had only moments to save myself. I called in the Phoenix Reborn."

"You can't. We've both tried, before. Those cards don't work here, they haven't been released," Kaiba said.

"I know. It was a desperation move. But the phoenix came. It saved me. Could that have been Pegasus' doing?"

Kaiba looked unconvinced. "That doesn't mean he's on our side. If he's here, it's for his own reasons."

"So he kept his word. He helped," Noa said, an inexplicable relief in his voice.

"Yes. I would have died but for him," I said.

"He's looking for his wife. He uploaded her just like my father did with me," Noa said.

"All he's wanted ever since before Duelists Kingdom was to be reunited with her. At least it seems that he's no longer willing to hurt others to reach his goal," I said.

"For now," Kaiba said. He looked at me and then added, "I owe him for your life. We both do. But I've been burned by him before."

"He told me about Duelists Kingdom," Noa broke in. "Pegasus said Cynthia would be sad if she knew what he'd done. He said he was never going to disappoint her again."

"That seems like a very slender thread to hang our hopes on," Kaiba observed.

"What can be stronger than love?" I asked him.

"Don't get all philosophical on me, Yami. I'm thinking about Mokuba's safety. You expect me to just forgive and forget?" Kaiba said.

"I hurt Mokuba just as badly," Noa said in a small voice. He didn't point out that Kaiba himself had done the same. Once hurting each other had been as natural as breathing.

"That's different. Mokuba was right to trust you. I don't doubt him – or you," Kaiba said, gruffly.

Noa smiled. "Mokuba keeps insisting we're all brothers." Once again, Noa's voice rose, turning his statement into a question.

Kaiba laughed. "We could be – if either of our definition of brotherhood stretched that far."

Noa chuckled as well. "Cousins, then?"

"That sounds about right," Kaiba said. "Don't tell Mokuba though. He's just as stubborn and uncompromising as either as us – especially when it comes to anyone he considers family."

Noa smiled and waved as he left.

We'd done all we could to make sure Yugi and Mokuba knew we were safe. It was time to go to the house. I looked around for a boat. My gaze fell on a bubbling spring surrounded by rocks. I was about to ask why there was a mini-geyser next to a lake when I saw the summoning runes. I grabbed Kaiba's arm. "Look! Those are the portals for Jounouchi and Anzu aren't they?"

Kaiba nodded.

I took a step forward then hesitated as it hit me that I'd never seen them with my own eyes, never spoken to them with my own voice.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Kaiba asked.

"Nothing. I'm ready," I answered, as I reached for the rune on the rock closes to me.

Kaiba jerked me off balance just as my fingers brushed against it.

"How many times do I have to warn you not to stand directly in front of a summoning rune? There could be a monster…" Kaiba began before a roar drowned out the rest of his words.

Tyranno Infinity sprang forwards, knocking over the rune and the summoning stone it held. Light scattered into prismatic rays as it hit his scale-like plating. It was hard to look at him directly.

Kaiba called in his lance. It looked fragile compared to the dinosaur bearing down on us. The beast's claws were longer than Kaiba's spear point. Kaiba ran forward anyway, but his weapon skidded along the monster's armored scales. Tyranno's tail swept out and sent Kaiba flying. He landed in a heap on the ground and lay there, dazed. The bottom of his duster was almost at the lake's edge. After a moment, that seemed to stretch on forever, he struggled to his knees.

I called in my crossbow and aimed for the monster's eye while his attention was on Kaiba, but the bolt glanced off his skull. At least it distracted the beast, giving Kaiba a chance to scramble to his feet and retrieve his lance. He ran to my side as Tyranno Infinity swung his massive head towards us. This time my shot lodged in the crease of his eyelid. Blood trickled down the side of his face. It wasn't a lethal shot, but Kaiba and I were ready. Kaiba had changed his lance for a javelin. As Tyranno opened his mouth to roar in pain both my crossbow bolt and Kaiba's javelin struck home, piecing the soft flesh of the roof of his mouth and plunging into his brain. We jumped clear of his fall. Tyranno was dead before he hit the ground.

We were alive.

 _I_ was alive.

I'd had this body for less than a day, and already I'd risked death and won. It felt so good I could have thrown back my head and laughed or hugged myself while dancing in circles. Instead I just stood there, grinning foolishly at Kaiba.

It had been different before. I'd been guilty every time I'd been in danger, hazarding a body and a life not my own. I reached out to Kaiba and pulled his face to meet mine, needing to taste his lips with ones that were indisputably real – and my own.

"Remind me to hope for monsters more often. I was just about to say that I'd rather have seen Jounouchi," Kaiba said when I finally released him.

I looked at him more closely. As usual he seemed slightly worse for wear. "Are you okay?" I asked.

"Of course," he answered, which meant he didn't have any internal injuries he considered worth healing.

I controlled a sudden spurt of anger. He didn't realize that his body was made to be cherished. Unfortunately Kaiba wasn't done talking.

"Want to take a chance on the spring? Either way we'll get a Harpy Lady," he laughed.

"You have no right to speak of Anzu so disrespectfully. Especially not when she was the one who tried to tell you how valuable your life card is," I said.

"I shouldn't have insulted your friends," he said grudgingly. "Especially someone who helped Mokuba."

I nodded and reached for the summoning rune next to the spring, careful this time to stay well to the side. I smiled with both relief and pleasure when she appeared. Even better, the dinosaur vanished as she arrived. I didn't want Anzu to worry – or to scold.

I stepped forward to great her, then stopped abruptly as I saw her frozen smile and remembered what I had seen in her heart when I had used the Key.

"Have you seen Yugi? How are you?" I asked.

"He's fine. We're all fine," she said.

I paused, awkwardly. I'd never had trouble talking to Anzu before. Then again, I'd never known that she'd wanted anything other than friendship.

"I'm glad. I've been worried," I said.

"You're stuck here – and you're worried about _us?_ " she laughed and then choked back a sob. "How could you possible say anything so silly, Ya…" she stopped in the middle of my name and looked at me, unsure what to call me.

"Yami is fine. I never want to forget my time with Yugi or my friendship with all of you."

"Friends forever," she said, and her smile finally lost its fixed quality. She held out her hand to me. It reminded me of the time she'd drawn a circle across our fingers. I took her hand then pulled her in to hug her tightly, and everything fell into place again. She was my friend. She was the girl Yugi wanted.

"It's good to see you. I've missed you so much," I said.

Her smile was natural, but naturally sad. "Me too," she said. "It's been awful, knowing you're all stuck here in this horrible nightmare world that should never have been created in the first place!"

"It's not horrible. In some ways, Anzu, it's been amazing," I said gently. I couldn't let her insult Kaiba's game.

She choked back a laugh. "Yugi said the same thing. I don't know why I expected you to have more sense." She glanced from me to Kaiba. Her gaze shied away from the Puzzle around his neck. I realized I hadn't told her my news, but I was still unsure what it would mean when it came time to head home. Last evening I'd gained my body. In less than a day I'd also acquired a secret.

Anzu's smile regained its forced quality as she nodded to Kaiba in greeting. "I didn't mean to put down your game. It's hard when the people you love are playing it."

"Yes. It is," Kaiba agreed.

"I hope you're well, too," she said.

"You worked for me once," Kaiba observed, clearly satisfied that he'd managed to corral an elusive memory.

"Well, I didn't know you were planning on killing people at the time!" she huffed.

That surprised a laugh out of him. "No, I didn't exactly put it in the help wanted advertisements."

She pressed her lips together. Her face got red.

"Mokuba told me about meeting you. He said you were nice to him. Thank you," Kaiba said, his tone as determinedly polite as hers had been.

She opened her mouth, shut it, then opened it to say, "You're welcome. He's a great kid."

I stifled a laugh wondering if whenever Kaiba was with my friends we should stick to talking about Mokuba. It was the one subject we all seemed to agree on.

"Oh! I don't know how I could have forgotten, even for a moment! Pegasus is here. He promised to help," she said in a rush.

"He has," I said. "He activated his new cards just like he promised. Noa gave us the news already."

"I'm so glad," she said smiling. "I knew he would."

I glanced at Kaiba, who retuned my look with a glare and murmured, thankfully too quietly for Anzu to hear, "I promised not to insult your friends. Did you expect me to forget before the first test was up?"

It had seemed like a distinct possibility to me, but I turned back to Anzu, not wanting to neglect her in the brief time we had together, and asked after everyone back home. I smiled at the thought that it was my home now. She told me about Jounouchi, Honda and even Bakura. She'd seen Yugi pretty frequently as well. I hadn't realized how starved I was for news until she started talking. With each sentence we fell back into our old habits of friendship until it was time for her to leave. She'd sounded upbeat the whole time, but I wasn't fooled. Her voice caught, then finally broke, as she said, "Please come home safely," and disappeared.

"You didn't have to defend me – or this world," Kaiba said once she'd left.

I grinned at his slight smile – and even slighter air of confusion.

"Yes. I do. Especially when it's the truth. This is an intricate, maddening, but ultimately breathtaking game – created by a man who has all those qualities in measure. And I plan on defending it, even when he doesn't think I need to, even to my friends."

"I don't understand. I'll never understand," Kaiba said.

"As long as you come to accept, I'll be content," I promised, kissing him again.

We broke apart and I looked around again for a boat again, realizing I still had no idea how to get to the safe house.

"What are we supposed to do, swim?" I asked sarcastically.

Kaiba grinned. "Nice to see you've figured it out."

"You have a dozen dragons at your disposal and you want to swim?"

"The safe house starts at the water's edge. If we tried to fly across the lake even my Blue Eyes White Dragon would vanish."

"Wait a minute – you mean we fought a dinosaur when all we had to do was jump in a lake to get away?"

"Of course not. If we'd tried we would have been returned to the battle site immediately. You can't run away from a fight," Kaiba said, offended by the suggestion that any game he created would make it easy so to escape.

"Of course not," I mimicked. I was about to point out that Mokuba almost certainly disagreed with his point of view when I was distracted by the sight of Kaiba shrugging out of his coat. I'd seen him naked in the twilit darkness of this world, but somehow watching him casually strip in the daylight was different.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"You don't expect me to swim with all of these clothes weighing me down?" he asked as he bent to remove his boots. "I'm going to put them in my inventory."

By now his shirt had joined his boots and coat. This was getting interesting. I thought of all the things I wanted to do to Kaiba in the water besides swim to an island cottage.

"Just how far are you going with this?" I asked, not bothering to hide my appreciation.

He pulled off his pants then looked away and muttered, "Swimming naked is… uncomfortable."

Given how closed off he was from his own feelings, I could easily imagine how he must have reacted to the water caressing his body so intimately.

"You might find it more pleasurable now… unless you're afraid," I challenged.

Kaiba scowled as he took off the last of his clothes and put them in his inventory. He turned his back on me and strode into the water.

"You'd better hurry if you want to keep up with me," he said.

I shrugged out of the rest of my clothes and followed him into the lake. It was just as well the water was chilly. Whatever my fantasies, Kaiba was only interested in making it to the island and shelter as quickly as possible. His long arms cut through the water as his legs scissored swiftly, propelling him forward. There was no way I was matching his pace.

Besides, I was enjoying the view.

Kaiba was dressed by the time I joined him on the island. I looked back at the shore we'd left behind. "If the safe house starts at the shore that means…"

"We have to get completely clear of the lake or die," Kaiba finished.

I looked at the peaceful lake and put my arms around Kaiba. He'd created this idyllic scene and then seen only danger and betrayal.

"Come on," he said, turning towards the small house and putting his arm around my shoulders. "It's time to get inside."

He waited until the wooden door had closed behind him, then faced me and announced, "I have something to say and I don't want to risk setting off a challenge."

I stared at his posture, the same one from our duels, back straight, hips thrust slightly forward. I braced myself for whatever monumentally stupid thing was going to come out of his mouth next.

"This world is my responsibility. Nothing can change that. I created it. I wrote the damn algorithms that let Gozaburo and the rest of them in here. When we finally win, you're leaving this world. I'm staying."

I should have known something like this was coming. I was furious anyway. "Just when I think you've finally started to understand, you prove over and over that you haven't got a clue!"

"Do the math," he snapped. "There are four of us now and three pods. What does that tell you?"

"That you're as big a fool as ever. An incredibly loyal, gallant fool," I said, embracing him and punctuating each word with a kiss. It made it hard for him to argue. When I saw I'd effectively shut him up (at least for the moment) I added, "I'm not letting you do anything of the sort. I was the one to bring the Millennium Items here. I chose to free myself from the Puzzle… from my search for the past. I'm the one who will accept the consequences from my actions."

"If this game is about you facing your past and deciding that having a present matters more – how can you just throw that away? It's like turning your back on everything you did here!" he yelled.

I should have kept my mouth fastened on his. Life was simpler when he wasn't talking.

"Who's refusing to learn now?" I countered. "You don't have to worry about what happens when we leave – because until you stop running from your feelings or finding new ways to push away anyone who cares for you, we'll be here a long time!"

"I won't leave you here like you were just another computer generated phantom. I once almost lost Mokuba to a game… to my game. That's never happening again. As long as I know you and Mokuba are safe, I'll be fine," he said.

I glared at him and crossed my arms in front of my chest. "Then we're at an impasse."

"Not necessarily," Kaiba said with a smirk. "There was another reason I insisted we come to a safe house. We can duel here without worrying that the cards we lose will be gone for the rest of the game. Any duel here won't have any consequences outside, except for the ones we agree to."

"So we duel to decide who stays?" I asked.

Kaiba nodded. "Duels exist to test our beliefs. The stronger player will stay – and it'll be me. Get ready to lose, King of Games."

I threw back my head and laughed. "I'm more than ready for your challenge. It's time to duel!" I announced, feeling like I was initiating a penalty game.

There was a small table near the window. We sat down; I looked out for a moment at the lake. A light breeze was ruffling its smooth surface. I turned back to Kaiba. His eyes were as dark as the water; as bright as the flickers of light that skimmed across its surface.

Kaiba said, "Card selection." His voice flat and businesslike once more. Cards started scrolling in front of him; all I could see were their opaque backs. He touched one and it appeared face down on the table.

"Why did you create a place where you could play a friendly match? The rest of this world is so full of challenge and consequence," I asked. This homey table and simple card game ran so counter to everything I knew about Kaiba.

"I thought I might teach Mokuba. He asked once, but it was right after Gozaburo. I didn't have the time." I was sorry the scrolling cards blocked my view of his face as he added, "That's not it. I didn't want him to become a duelist. I was afraid he'd become my enemy instead of my little brother; that brotherhood would end the moment he challenged me. We both know what happened when he disobeyed." Kaiba paused again. "I wanted a place to teach him in peace."

The scrolling cards disappeared as I walked around the table and hugged him. I stepped back. His face was carefully expressionless, but it was the blankness of someone hurt so badly they had forgotten how to scream.

"Seto, you didn't need to build a safe house. You don't need to protect him from yourself. You can teach him when he gets home. He's safe with you."

Kaiba nodded quickly, but it was a jerky movement, unlike his usual graceful gestures.

"I hope we meet up with him soon. I think you need to see him," I said.

"I need to get him home," he answered.

Kaiba dropped his gaze to his cards. He placed the Battle Ox on the table, face up to begin the duel.

"Who better to start things off than my trusted warrior?" Kaiba asked. He put another card face down to end his turn.

I smiled as I placed the Celtic Guardian on my side of the table. I, too, would rely on my faithful friends. I equipped my monster with the Sword of Dragon's Soul. It was what I was fighting for, after all.

I had the stronger monster, at least for this turn. I called on him to attack. Kaiba flipped over his face down card. Mask of Weakness stole the Celtic Guardian's newly acquired attack points, leaving him unprotected in the middle of his charge. I moved both my cards to the graveyard. As the duel continued, the only sound in the room was the patter of our cards being laid down on the table, the hiss of them being swept to our graveyards.

I'd gotten so used to the sights and sounds and even smells of holographic battles… to the sickening, bone-jarring thud of a monster falling in defeat, to the flash of light as a sword swept through the air before finding its target, to the sudden spray of blood. Instead, it was just the cards, the table and us.

It was just as it should be.

I'd expected Kaiba to play well. His own competitive nature ensured that. But I'd also counted on him to be reckless, to take too many chances, to count – just a little too much – on his powerful monsters. That had always been the margin of victory between us.

That advantage was gone. Kaiba was playing as brilliantly as always, but far more cautiously. Instead of going for a master strike, he was patiently whittling away my life points while conserving his own. For once, his deck had Spell cards that could protect his monsters. Twice I'd destroyed his monster only to have him repair the damage to his life points.

"You have no idea how maddening you are!" I yelled.

Kaiba looked at me blankly.

"I've never seen you play this carefully, protect each life point so thoroughly as now – when your goal is to throw them all away!"

You shouldn't be surprised," he answered. "You were the one to remind me that you play better when you're fighting for the things that are crucial. That's never going to change. If I can get you and Mokuba home, then I can face whatever happens."

"I don't want you to become someone else. But I'm not losing you to this world – or to your own stubbornness," I said.

"I'm not being stubborn. I'm being logical. I designed this game. I have the best chance of figuring out a way back."

"Logic can only take you so far. I'm not leaving you here. I told you I'd never walk away from you and I mean it." My cards were in my left hand. I reached with my right to briefly caress his cheek.

Despite the fact he was leaning into my palm, he said, "Don't distract me."

"You can't think I'd try so cheap a trick," I said, refusing to drop my hand.

"No. But I don't want to be reminded of everything I'll let walk away from me when I win," he said.

"And I never want you to forget that I love you," I answered just as quickly.

The game went on. Our life points kept dropping in tandem as if they were tied together, until Kaiba had less than 1,000 left and I was even closer to defeat. I'd never wanted to win a game so badly as now, when I could buy Kaiba's safety with my victory. My fingers trembled slightly as I drew my next card. I stared at Summon Skull. I remembered playing it against Kaiba in our first shadow game. I was sure Kaiba did as well.

I knew how long Kaiba held on to grudges. I needed Kaiba reckless, and for that I needed him mad… blind to everything but the need to destroy. And Summon Skull was the perfect bait. Powerful enough to attract his attention, strong enough to stir up bitter memories. If Kaiba had a Blue Eyes White Dragon in his hand – and I was ready to bet that he did – Summon Skull was the perfect card to draw it out. And when he attacked, I had Mirror Force lying in wait to destroy his dragon and win this game.

"I thought I'd play an old friend," I said, putting Summon Skull on the table. "He set my first victory over you in motion and he's going to preside over my last."

"You son of a bitch!" Kaiba yelled.

I waited for his Blue Eyes White Dragon. He set Axe Raider instead and ended his turn. Destroying the armored monster would lessen Kaiba's life points by 100. It wasn't the coup I'd been looking for but anything would help. As I attacked, Kaiba turned over the Trap Card, After the Struggle, sending Summon Skull to the graveyard. He'd paid 100 life points to destroy one of my most powerful monsters. It was a smart strategic mood, but one totally unlike Kaiba's usual style. I felt like our positions had been reversed. Only the anger lighting Kaiba's face was familiar.

"You figured I'd do something stupid the moment you threw Summon Skull down. You thought I'd want revenge so badly I'd forget everything else – even your safety!" he accused.

I shook my head numbly.

"You told me at Alcatraz that I had to defeat my own demons to win. I'm telling you now – if you keep underestimating me, you're going to lose. After all your talk about how you had faith in me, you not only figured I was incapable of changing – you were banking on it!"

The worst part was: every word he was screaming at me was true. I'd wanted to see him out of this world so desperately I'd ignored everything he'd done since coming here. I'd made a mockery of all I'd told him, all I'd ever wanted him to believe about himself. For the first time I was afraid of losing; for the first time I wondered if it was what I deserved.

"You weren't the one who got distracted. I was," I said, reaching out to stroke his cheek again. "I didn't see beyond my own need to protect you, even if it meant turning my back on every vow I've made to you, everything I know about who you are, who you've pushed yourself to become. I'm ready to play, now. Make no mistake – I plan to win this game. But I won't do it by betting against you."

Kaiba nodded. "Then get ready to duel. I won't accept anything less than your best."

It seemed fitting that I drew the Black Magician next. Kaiba surprised me by placing the Hieratic Dragon of Eset on the field in defense mode. I left his monster untouched, thinking about how much Kaiba's game had grown. I lay down one more trap card and ended my turn.

Now the Blue Eyes White Dragon finally took the field, equipped with Dragon Treasure, giving it 800 more attack points than my Black Magician – enough of a difference to wipe out my life points. I waited for Kaiba to call his attack, waited to finally use Mirror Force to win. But Kaiba had one more Trap card to play, Hieratic Seal of Banishment. He bypassed my Black Magician to point to one of the two cards that lay face down on my side of the table. He'd managed to pick Mirror Force and destroy it as though he'd been led to the spot.

He finally called his attack. I couldn't let him win. I couldn't let him die here, alone. I turned over Ring of Destruction. It was the one card I'd never expected to play, even when I'd put it in my deck, even as I'd placed it on the table. It subtracted the Blue Eyes White Dragon's attack points – all 3300 of them, from _both_ of our life points, dragging them both down to zero.

Kaiba and I stared at the cards on the table, then at each other. His eyes were as wide and shocked as when he lost. Only he hadn't.

The match had ended in a tie.

"Every time I duel you, I think I know all the answers. And each time, the cards confound me," Kaiba said, still starring at the cards on the table as if scowling at them would change the outcome.

I opened my mouth.

"The last thing I want to hear right now one of your 'heart of the cards' speeches," Kaiba said, looking up from the table to glare at me instead.

"For once, I don't think you need one," I answered. It had always amazed me that someone as in tune with his cards as Kaiba… that someone who could feel his dragons' hearts beating in his deck, pulsing in time with his own, would deny them so steadfastly. Or was it simply the word, 'heart' he objected to?

"I didn't win either," I pointed out. It was the closest Kaiba had ever come to beating me in a fair fight.

"Yes, there's that," he replied.

I tried to puzzle out what the outcome meant and started to laugh, softly. The cards apparently had a sense of humor in their lessons.

"What's so funny?" Kaiba snapped.

"If you had lost, would you have tamely accepted leaving me here as a result?" I asked.

Kaiba scowled. He pushed back from the table and started pacing the room, ignoring the chair he'd knocked over with the force of his rising. How could he have imagined that he could live confined to this world without going mad?

"No," he said. "That's why I had to win."

"And I feel the same, just as strongly."

He stopped pacing long enough to stare at me, as if holding my gaze without blinking was a new contest.

"I want you to be free of this place. I want you to finally get to the chance to live. You deserve that," Kaiba said.

"And I want the same for you."

"I don't care what it costs me," he hissed.

"You never do. But this time, I don't…"

"Okay, I get it," Kaiba interrupted. "There's nothing I can say that you won't echo." He resumed his pacing. "Duels test not just our skills, but our beliefs. It seems we were both wrong, that sacrifice isn't the answer. Then what is?"

"Unity. Friendship." I shook my head. "I'm not sure either. But I knew abandoning you couldn't be the answer. It seems running out on myself isn't it either."

"I should have expected something like this. I created this world to find a new direction." He pointed an accusing finger in my direction, "You were about to say, 'heart of the cards' again, weren't you?"

"I wouldn't dream of it," I said with a laugh.

Kaiba joined in, then abruptly stopped in mid-chuckle, went back to the table, called in a notebook and mechanical pencil and started scribbling. I weighed the possibility he'd forgotten I was there, that he'd forgotten that anything existed but the flow of his ideas. He stared at the page with the same intensity I'd seen in all out duels… or when we made love.

I loved watching him think.

He looked up, remembering with a start I was still in the room with him. I moved my chair next to his. He'd drawn one of the VR pods that had carried us here. There were coded instructions under it.

"The VR pod is the key. You and Yugi came here together. Therefore, it must be able to carry two sets of brainwaves without scrambling them."

I nodded. It seemed like a workable, if risky assumption. But I was glad to see Kaiba applying himself to the problem of getting us _both_ home safely.

"The pod itself won't be a problem. I never got around to restricting it to a single occupant," he continued.

"You mean we could both go back in the same VR pod? How would we fit?" I asked.

"The walls were made to shape themselves to the user's body, but the pod itself was made to accommodate a wide range of body types, sizes and weights," Kaiba said, noticeably more relaxed now that he had an engineering problem to confront instead of an emotional one. "The helmet's the real issue. We'll still only have one. But my original goal was to make the pod helmetless and to have the sensory components built into the walls." He pointed to a set of interlocking boxes and ovals on the page. "That's the schematic. I could probably take the helmet apart and rewire the pod itself. And hope the ride home doesn't fry our brains."

"Sounds like a plan to me," I said.

"Mokuba's getting out of here before we try, just in case it doesn't work and we have to find another way home," Kaiba said.

"And Yugi," I added.

Mokuba was used to obeying his brother; Kaiba could probably coerce him into a pod. Yugi would be far harder to convince. But I was content to leave tomorrow's problems to tomorrow, though. We'd agreed to abide by the results of our duel.

Whatever came our way, Kaiba and would be facing it together.

* * *

.

**_Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter and_ **

**THANKS** to Bnomiko, Splintered Star (or for LJ minded folks, Starsplinter) and Kagemihari for helping me sort out why Kaiba and Yami would duel and why it needed to end in a draw.

 **Damon and Pythias Note:** The story of Damon and Pythias is a Greek myth. It was, however, re-told by the Romans, most notably by Cicero… and I find all the minor Roman gods and goddesses fascinating,

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** In this chapter, I wanted Yami and Kaiba to duel for who was going to stay. They were both smart enough to realize the implications of Yami having a body in terms of now having one more body than VR pod, and I felt neither I nor they could ignore that. And of course, they'd both feel equally strongly that they were the person who should sacrifice themselves for the other. Since this is Yu-Gi-Oh! it seemed like a duel would be the most appropriate way for them to settle the question. And I liked the idea that Yami was not only banking on the fact that Kaiba hadn't changed, but that he's actively trying to bring out his angrier, more destructive side because all he can think about is that he wants Kaiba to live and to do that Yami has to win the duel. But I thought any answer that involved one of them being safe while the other gave up his life would be an answer they couldn't accept, so the duel had to end in a tie.

Sometimes though, this late into a story, something funny happens on the way to a scene – I have to both make sure I'm not ignoring something I established as a routine previously while at the same time making sure I don't disarrange something I have slotted in for the future.

Once I had the duel set in my head, I realized that for them to duel, they needed a safe space to do it, where they didn't have to worry about setting off a challenge or losing cards they might need against their enemies later, which meant they had to get to a safe house. That was when I realized that Kaiba would want to talk to Noa first, so Noa could tell Mokuba that they had made it to a safe house. Since I hadn't shown Noa and Kaiba for a few chapters and I've been trying, at a (hopefully) measured pace, to show their relationship growing this sort of solved two problems.

But before I could get them into that safe house there was Yami to deal with because there are summoning runes either in or near all the safe houses and that Yami would definitely want to see his friends. Here's where things got a little more complicated because while I liked having Yami meet Anzu before the others, I'd also planned to have them meet Jounouchi a little later. Luckily, summoning runes sometimes call up monsters. So before I could actually let Kaiba and Yami duel, they had to: 1) talk to Noa, 2) fight a dinosaur, 3) meet Anzu, 4) swim a lake (frighteningly enough there's a reason for the lake besides eye-candy.)

Whew… I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted! I'm sorry for the delay, making this all work took some time.

_I'd really love to hear what you think. Comments would really be appreciated._


	41. Pharaoh's Servant

**RECAP OF PREVIOUS CHAPTER:** In Chapter 40, Kaiba and Yami duel to see who would win the dubious prize of staying behind so his comrades could use the three VR pods to go home. When the duel ends in a tie, they realize they have to find a way to go home together.

On the way to that realization though, Yami tries to win the duel by relying on all of Kaiba's faults coming out under stress, trying to save Kaiba's life by drawing out Kaiba's weaknesses to win.

* * *

**CHAPTER 41: PHARAOH'S SERVANT**

_Aladdin reaches out his hand to Jasmine and says, "Do you trust me?" Of course, since this is a Disney movie and he's the hero, it's perfectly safe for her to do so even though she's about to jump out of a window or onto a flying carpet._

_Cinderella needed to see a pumpkin turn into a coach to believe she was going to the ball. Jasmine only needed to see Aladdin's smile. Which one was the wiser?_

_Or does faith just come more naturally to a much loved and pampered princess that it does to a disinherited scullery maid?_

**RYOU BAKURA'S NARRATIVE:**

Jounouchi was behind the counter at Kame Game Shop when I walked in the door. He pushed himself upright with a grunt and came forward to greet me.

"Your turn," he said.

I nodded. I was glad to help mind the store. I'd been doing it ever since Jounouchi had told me that they were working on a VR pod so that one of them could go help Yugi and the rest.

"Thanks," he added. "Sugoroku came home with me but I wanted to let him get some rest. He's pretty badass, but he's getting old, you know? This has taken a lot out of him."

"No problem. Glad to do it," I said as I took his place behind the counter.

I meant it. At first, I'd just wanted to be busy. Watching the store was better than hanging out in an empty apartment. But I'd come to like working here. I liked having kids come in, even when they pushed each other into the shelves and left greasy fingerprints that I had to clean all over the counter. I liked watching the older ones come in in a pack, laughing and joking with each other. I loved the way the younger ones would go to their parents, toys clutched tightly in their fists, giving them the pleading looks all kids learn – the one that says without words that they know their parents are going to come through for them. I liked seeing them leave excited with their purchases. It was like a story that kept repeating over and it always had a happy ending. Best of all, I was a part of it. The Spirit of the Ring hadn't taken my life with him when he'd left.

I'd expected Jounouchi to go, but he shook his hair out of his eyes and leaned against the wall next to the cash register.

"We finished the VR pod," he announced.

I stared at Jounouchi, trying to make sense out of his words. I'd assumed that once it was finished he'd be the one using it.

He started pacing the narrow alley in front of the counter. He stopped, then said, "Pegasus is there... in the virtual world. I watched him get in the pod and vanish just like the others. I don't know what the hell I was thinking, agreeing to something like that. But Pegasus said that he had these duel monsters that could help the guys, and Anzu said we should trust him and all I could think was that Yugi would probably agree to give him a chance… and then Pegasus was gone, VR pod and all. That was our one shot at helping them. I just hope we did the right thing."

"Yugi would have done the same," I assured him.

"Yeah, but Yugi trusts everyone," Jounouchi said gloomily.

"No he doesn't. Not really." I said. I flushed as Jounouchi stared at me. It's hard trying to explain things. "Yugi trusted me to help, but he never trusted the Spirit of the Ring. Yugi's kind, not stupid. I've never seen him believe in the wrong guy."

"He's too nice. He got himself beaten up defending me even though I was picking on him and stealing his stuff," Jounouchi argued.

"And he was right about you," I reminded Jounouchi.

"I miss him," Jounouchi said, slouching a little more until he was huddled into himself.

"Me, too," I answered.

He folded his arms across his chest and looked down. His hair flopped back in front of his eyes. He pushed his bangs aside and looked at me. "You really think it'll be okay?" Jounouchi asked.

I nodded, although I was far from sure. Jounouchi must have been satisfied because he let out a sigh of relief.

"It's been odd working with Isono and Fubeta and all," Jounouchi added as he straightened up a little. He took a look at my blank face and said, "You know, the two guys with Kaiba all the time. Isono's the one with the sunglasses who call the duels."

I'd never known their names.

"Why?" I asked.

He frowned and dug his hands into his pockets. "I don't know. It's weird being around people who like Kaiba."

I laughed at that.

"It's not just because his name is on their paychecks either. The thing is…" he said, digging one toe of his scuffed up sneakers into the linoleum tiled floor, "I think they're rubbing off on me."

I laughed again.

"It's not funny," Jounouchi said, giving up pawing the tiles in favor of going back to pacing in front of the counter. "I swore that I'd never forgive Kaiba, not unless he apologized for trying to kill us – and even then I'd check the windows to see how many pigs were flying overhead. But the stuff they said… it got me thinking about Noa's World. Destroying KC's weapons factories, making games, letting kids into KaibaLand for free… going crazy just so he could give Mokuba a home… that's not too shabby. I remember you saying something like that at Duelist Kingdom."

I thought back. It had been one of the worst times of my life. Despite everything I'd done, the Spirit of the Ring had returned, forcing me to admit just how weak I was, how powerless when it came to anything that mattered.

"I guess I just needed to hope that someone could escape," I said.

"Escape what?" Jounouchi asked.

"Whatever's out there." I paused. Anything I added would be more about me than Kaiba, and I was used to keeping my thoughts locked tight (not that anyone but the Spirit of the Ring had been interested, anyway), but friendship's about risk. I said, "My father went all the way to Egypt to try and get away from my mother and sister's death. I wanted to escape someplace where that didn't hurt. It didn't work out."

"Running never does," Jounouchi said. He looked more serious than I'd ever seen him. "With my dad… I joined a gang. I might have gone back to them, but I met Yugi. He saw someone cool, someone who could be a great friend, and I wasn't going to give up on that." He shook his head. "Kaiba doesn't strike me as someone who'd take an escape route even if you wrapped it up in a ribbon and gave it to him for his birthday. He's a total jerk, but I got to give him two things: he's an amazing brother and he's crazy brave. Cutting and running just isn't in his playbook."

"He designs games," I pointed out.

"Yeah. Ain't that a kick in the pants? A tough-assed competitive guy like Kaiba making a bunch of kid's games."

I'd never said more than a few words to Kaiba, and I didn't know a thing about whatever compulsions were riding him. But I'd heard Kaiba's history and after working here, I knew why he made games. They were an antidote to death.

Jounouchi shook his head and laughed. "I must be getting soft. I not only let Pegasus waltz off with the VR pod we worked so hard to build, but I'm even starting to think Kaiba might not be such a bad guy."

"His game is about people changing, isn't it?" I reminded Jounouchi.

"Yeah, but I'm not playing it," he said, flinging himself into a chair. "I'm just there as a stupid NPC."

I smiled. The line between virtual and reality is a lot thinner than that, at least it always had been for me. "You're getting see to the most amazing virtual world ever designed. I'd give anything to be in your shoes," I said. I'd been jealous every time Jounouchi or Honda had talked about it.

"You wouldn't say that if you were stuck in a damn dog costume," Jounouchi grumbled.

"It would be worth it," I said. Why did everyone forget that I was the one who designed role playing worlds, not the Spirit of the Ring? And this one sounded incredible.

"I guess you could probably use Honda's avatar if you really wanted to take a look. It's got no personality at all. Even Pegasus couldn't tie it to one of us. But you know, that's a really sucky idea. The psycho is still in there. You don't want to get mixed up with him again," Jounouchi said.

I nodded because it was the easiest thing to do. But the truth was I didn't hate the Spirit of the Ring or even fear him. If anything, I felt kind of bad when I thought about him. Now that he was gone I realized: I had a life. All he had was revenge, and that wasn't anything at all.

* * *

**KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

I knew a challenge would be coming the minute we left the safe house. We'd just agreed we were going home together or not at all. But I couldn't help remembering the other thing the duel had proved: just how little Yami really thought I'd changed. I should have been mad, even though he'd apologized. But I was tired. I wondered if he was right.

Yami took a look at my face and started in again. "Seto, I'm truly sorry that I didn't show how much I respect you."

I shrugged in place of answering. Yami could have thrown all the times I'd let him down in my face. He certainly had the ammunition. But he didn't. Instead he was acting guilty, as if he'd under-rated Yugi, not me. It was puzzling. I didn't like apologies, anyway. Just like with friendship I'd seen a lot more fake ones than true.

I frowned. The last word I'd use to describe Yami was 'false.' But it stuck in my head all the same. Which Yami was I supposed to believe in? The one who told me everything I wanted to hear, or the one I'd just dueled who felt the opposite?

But I wasn't going to doubt Yami, even if I didn't like the one inescapable conclusion that believing in him led to.

His head was down. I didn't like seeing him like that. Yami didn't do humble any more – or any better – than I did.

"Quit apologizing," I said. "For most of the time we'd known each other, banking on my sense of honor would have been a sucker's bet." I laughed, aware of how bitter the sound was, even for me. "Sometimes it seems like no matter how far we move or how fast, we're never going to leave Death-T in the dust."

"Stop that this minute, Seto Kaiba! Not another word!" Yami yelled.

"You were there," I said, crossing my arms and glaring at him, just as if this was a duel.

Yami squared off against me. Despite the height difference between us he was standing just as erectly. His head was up now; his eyes were glowing blood red as they gazed unblinkingly into mine.

"Yes. I saw you at the worst moment of your life – the one you would give anything to take back. I marched into your soul room. You were defeated and humiliated and lost. I saw the darkness that you'd surrendered to along with whatever was left of your childhood. I saw the hollowness at the core of your being. And I knew that even if you hated me for it, you had the strength to rebuild. I could see, in the wreckage of your soul, the person that could emerge, a man that I'd be honored to know and call my friend. Don't tell me how I feel about you. Seto, why do you keep doing this?"

"Because I'd rather accept that your opinion of me was fully justified than wonder if you've been stringing me along this whole time, humoring me so that we could win this game and you could get Yugi home. I'd rather do anything than that," I said.

Yami's mouth dropped open. He closed it enough to ask, with acid sweetness, "With the sex as an extra bonus?"

I shook my head. "I know better. You wouldn't lie. Not to me, not like that. So what other answer is there? Gozaburo kept telling me that no matter what I did I couldn't escape myself… that he never brought out anything that wasn't already inside of me to begin with." I laughed. "He said I should thank him for introducing me to myself."

"Will you stop repeating every lie he ever told you?" Yami screamed.

I shrugged again. "Even Sugoroku only started talking to me because he wanted to make sure I wasn't going to turn homicidal again on his grandson."

Yami drew in a deep breath, swelling like he'd swallowed a balloon. I waited for the explosion. His breath hissed out slowly. He walked over to me and reached his hand towards my face. I was half-expecting one of our fights to finally turn physical, but he caressed my cheek.

"Seto… are those really the only two choices you see? That either I've been playing you all along or else you're not worth the effort? Can't you see the third way? I wasn't using you. I couldn't stand the thought of you in danger! I didn't care what happened as long as you were safe."

I leaned down and kissed him. I was fine with any answer that made it okay for me to keep doing that. I was all for dropping the whole subject. Yami wasn't.

"You keep trying to trust me… but you don't know what trust is… you don't really believe in it do you, Seto?" he asked.

I stared at him, wondering if after all we'd been through, a wrong answer would make him walk away now that he could. I was afraid to have my pause last too long.

"You deserve my trust," I said.

"That's not an answer and you know it," he countered.

I smiled slightly. I loved the way Yami always called me out on everything everyone else would just let slide. I stood up straight and faced him. He'd asked. He deserved the truth.

"I don't trust happiness. I trust pain, I trust desperation, I trust sacrifice," I said defiantly.

"Sometimes trust is about all those things," Yami answered just as seriously. He closed the distance between us like he always did and hugged me. Then he headed for the door.

"Come on. It's time to go," he said as he walked out.

"As soon as we leave here, we're going to face a challenge," I warned him.

"I know. I think we need to. We're ready for it… and I have confidence in your game."

"How can you keep saying that? Haven't you noticed it's trying to kill us?"

"Only if we're too slow to learn," Yami said. His smirk was firmly in place.

Yami reached the edge of the lake and stripped.

I stared. I understood ambition and pride, but Yami was teaching me hunger. It wasn't just that he was beautiful, that he was slender and strong all at the same time. It was how confident he looked… how he was so comfortable in his body, new as it was; how he could reveal it so unselfconsciously. Watching him stretch and move gracefully towards the water… I was the one who felt naked.

I followed him more slowly, weighing keeping on at least some of my clothes. I felt exposed enough already. Yami entered the lake. As I gazed at his smooth strokes as he moved swiftly through the water, as he made it his natural element – matching him suddenly felt like a challenge, one I refused to duck.

We both reached the other shore – and the end of our sanctuary – at the same time. I'd dragged my pants on and had just started on the bottom buttons of my shirt when the Witty Phantom appeared. I glanced at Yami. He was fully clothed. I frowned at the floor, then transferred my glare to the Witty Phantom.

I hated him. The Witty Phantom had been my jailer when I'd been trapped by the Big 5 in their virtual world. He'd belittled me, taunted me like I was still helpless and under Gozaburo's thumb, like he could just pick up where my adoptive father had left off.

"Feeling a little exposed are we, Kaiba-boy?" He stared at my half-bared chest. "Not a bad body, if a bit on the skinny side. Was it all the missed meals?" the Witty Phantom asked, smoothing the lapel on his pinstriped suit and straightening his tie with a white-gloved hand.

I could tell myself that the Witty Phantom was just a playing card; that he didn't have a personality, but each time I looked into his sneering face none of that mattered.

"Fuck off!" I yelled.

"To sink to your level of childishness, you're going to have to make me," he said.

"Gladly," I snarled. I wasn't going to summon my duel monsters. I called in my dual kodachi instead and ran towards him, only to bounce backwards, as though I'd hit an invisible wall. I landed on my ass in the sand.

"Congratulations! You made me use up a trap card to block your attack. Now I only have 13 left. Luckily that's my favorite number. Are you ready to continue – using your cards this time instead of your fists?"

"If that's the way you'd prefer to lose, that's fine with me," I snarled.

"You always were such a recalcitrant child," he sighed.

"I'm not a child, and you're not my adoptive father – but keep going the way you are and you just might wind up like him."

"I'm curious… given your feelings, why do you keep me in your deck?" he asked, playing with his indigo hat like the answer was of no importance.

"You're useful," I replied.

He smiled. "Such a pragmatic child."

Given we were facing the Witty Phantom, the duel started out straight-forwardly enough; we were sending each other's monsters to the graveyard at a pretty good clip with each exchange. The Witty Phantom confined his preference for head games to his card selection; each monster had been picked to piss me off. Like Yami, he was trying to throw me off my game by getting me mad.

The ice monster I'd fought weeks ago returned, only to be dispatched by Yami's Summoned Skull. The Marauding Captain who'd destroyed my GPS tracker, leaving me with no way to figure out where Mokuba was or how he was doing came next. I wanted to face him myself, but I ended up delegating the task. He died under the Rabid Horseman's hooves. I could only be thankful that, like us, the game could use each spell or trap card only a limited number of times; I didn't have to worry about a Dragon Capture Jar. My dragon was waiting in my hand. I hadn't unleashed her yet.

We'd been playing this game so long, it was harder and harder deciding which monsters to choose for each challenge. Just like in a regular duel, we could only use three of each, and if they were sent to the graveyard, they'd be useless to us for as long as the game lasted, unless we burned a spell or trap card to bring them back. It had made sense at the time; I hadn't planned on getting stuck in here for weeks on end.

Despite how ordinary this duel was turning out to be – or maybe because of it – each exchange had me more keyed up than the last. Boring and routine weren't in the Witty Phantom's playbook. Ambushes were.

As if he was answering my thoughts, the Witty Phantom sprang his trap. Golden cords worked their way around my torso. They pulled my arms back, tied my hands behind me.

"What the fuck?" I yelled as three swords, each as tall as I was, slammed into the earth, forming a circle around me. As long as I could fight, I felt free. Now I was helpless for the next three turns. I could throw as many monsters as I wanted on the field. I couldn't attack with any of them.

The Witty Phantom grinned. "An accomplished duelist like you doesn't recognize Swords of Revealing Light when he sees them?"

Of course I did. If there was one card I hated (besides the Witty Phantom), this one was it. Every time it was played against me I could see my father heading to his bedroom after working too late to spend the evening with us, stumbling a little as he walked past my and Mokuba's room. I saw him turn to wave at me as I watched through my half-open door, powerless to make him look in on Mokuba, too. I could feel the whoosh of the car door slamming after our relatives dumped us at the orphanage as casually as you'd take out the trash. I could hear the staff at the orphanage lecture me after I'd turned down yet another family, ordering me to give up my hopeless dream of finding a home for me and Mokuba. Swords of Revealing Light was everything that had ever held me back, that had tried to hold me down, put into card form.

I stopped struggling briefly as the Witty Phantom played his next card. Suddenly, a star appeared, shining down on us, although it was still day. A blinding light sprang up, separating Yami from the Witty Phantom. It was Sword of Revealing Light's partner: Wall of Revealing Light. Now Yami couldn't attack him either, while the Witty Phantom could pick off our monsters or send demons to the field to attack us directly.

Yami smirked, like the Witty Phantom had just fallen into his trap instead of the other way around. He stared into my eyes as he set the Trap card, Ricochet. With Wall of Revealing Light in place, Yami couldn't attack the Witty Phantom directly. But Ricochet provided a way around that. If I set up my monsters for Yami to annihilate, when he destroyed them, the full power of their attack would be turned against the Witty Phantom.

I'd never seen Yami use Ricochet before, even in tag team duels. I hadn't realized he'd even heard of the card.

"You only get to pick seven cards per challenge in advance. How did you know to make that one of them? I designed this virtual world, and it never occurred to me," I said.

"Because I trust this game, and you don't. I have faith that, although it might kill us, it's trying to teach us something. Because I'm listening to it and you're not. It's that simple." Yami paused for emphasis, commanding my attention. "Because I'm willing to push this as hard and as far as I have to… until you understand, until you admit – not that you _want_ to trust me, or that you'll _try_ to trust me – but that you already do. I know you can. Prove me right."

I felt myself icing over, as if I was still fighting the frost demon. But this ran deeper, straight to the bone, burrowing inwards, telling me that I was alone, that I was always going to be alone, that believing anyone could care was the stupidest and deadliest illusion of all. It was the ice-cold certainty of my life. For all that it lived side by side with a burning rage, neither had ever been able to melt or quench the other.

"If you know the game that well, why didn't you give me a heads up? Instead you arranged things so I was the one sending my monsters to the graveyard, not you," I snarled at him.

Yami stared at me. His eyes had opened so wide that, except for the color, he could almost have been mistaken for Yugi.

"This is why I love you," he said wonderingly. "Every time I'm completely sure of myself, you manage to knock me off balance. I'd have taken an oath that this challenge was about you – that it was your ability to trust, even when it seemed to go against your own interests, that was being judged. But it's about my arrogance as well, isn't it? I was so sure I knew what was going on, that I knew what you needed to do … but suddenly this duel is about how I keep making mistakes just when I feel at the top of my game. I've insulted you twice in less than a day, and both times all I wanted to do was help. And as mad as you are, I know you know that." Yami laughed. "Maybe this duel is about trust after all, and its lessons are meant for me as well."

I glared at Yami, although the person I was really mad at was myself – for letting Yami disarm me so easily. He'd just admitted that he'd been so high-handedly full of himself he'd put my monsters – my Blue Eyes White Dragon – in jeopardy. And here I was listening to him like a little child being told a bedtime story, wanting Yami to find a way to make it all right for me to believe in him. The Witty Phantom laughed at my dilemma.

"Well, it's easy to see who calls the shots in this relationship. Then again, causing collateral damage is what you're good at, isn't it my little weapons designer?" the Witty Phantom crooned.

That remark tipped the balance. I was still so furious at Yami that I couldn't talk. But I was going to do what he wanted. I summoned Genesis Dragon.

"I know what it's like to sacrifice your monsters, how it hurts when they go to the graveyard," Yami said.

Yami had the Black Magician on the field. He was slightly stronger than my dragon, but my dragon was more powerful than anything the Witty Phantom had shown us so far. Best of all, every time Yami destroyed my Genesis Dragon, the beast returned to my hand, ready to be sacrificed all over again. It seemed appropriate – hadn't I come into this game looking for a genesis of sorts? And I still had my Blue Eyes White Dragon, the card that I had always counted on to light the way to my future, in my hand. I was hoping against hope I wouldn't have to offer her up for sacrifice. We each only had a few cards left – enough to last until the end of Swords of Revealing Light.

But that was like asking for luck in a nightmare.

The Witty Phantom played Ally of Justice Nullifier. As Yami destroyed the Genesis Dragon, the ricochet took out the Witty Phantom's monster, but Nullifier's effect ensured that my dragon would stay in the graveyard. Stone-faced, I put up an Ally of Justice of my own – Ally of Justice Clausolas – for Yami to destroy.

I knew it wouldn't be enough.

It wasn't. The Witty Phantom put his last monster on the field. There was only one way to destroy it.

Yami equipped his Black Magician with the Axe of Fools. I wondered if it was another apology. Now his monster was powerful to take out my dragon – and the fallout would destroy the Witty Phantom's last monster, taking our foe down with his final demon.

"It's time, Seto. Do it," Yami told me. He said it quietly. It didn't matter.

I felt myself grow numb. I'd once said that unity meant that Yami expected me to do what he ordered. Now we seemed to have come full circle.

"She's not just gone for one challenge. You know how this game works. Any monster killed is gone for the entire session – and who knows how long that's going to last, unless I use up one of my last two Monster Reborns," I hissed at him.

The Blue Eyes White Dragon was my future. Yami knew that. I'd sacrificed it once for Mokuba. Now Yami was telling me to do it again. Yami looked at me, his eyes laser-bright, cutting through the frost starting to form in mine.

"I know what I'm asking for. It's the only way to win," he said.

"Because you set it up that way!" I raged at him.

"Yes."

I looked at Yami, at the naked plea in his eyes. Had it always been there? Yami wasn't demanding my obedience. He was asking me to forget his blunders and remember only him… who he was, what we'd shared… to believe in him even when it meant laying down my dragon for him to destroy.

"Are you really ready to throw the card that means your future away on his say so? Maybe your adoptive father was right about you after all," the Witty Phantom said, watching me as intently as Yami.

"There's more than one way to reach your future," Yami said. "I promise, even as you lay your dragon on the field, it will still be lighting the way forwards."

I nodded and summoned her. As she stretched her wings, magnificent as always, I felt, briefly, the cords tying me to my past, to the certainty I carried like another briefcase – that trust was a weakness, that belief was a danger I couldn't afford – fray just a little further. I'd been ready to destroy my future. Could a new one, like the Phoenix Reborn, rise out of its ashes?

"I promise," Yami repeated as his Black Magician attacked. My dragon exploded in a burst of light, taking the Witty Phantom's last monster with her.

"Damn you!" I hissed. I had no idea why after Yami had just ordered me around like he was still a pharaoh and I was his serf, had just admitted that he'd set up a strategy that conserved his monsters while sacrificing mine, I'd taken one look into his eyes and done what he'd wanted.

I hurt with the loss of my dragon.

I glared at Yami, expecting him to look smug or superior, expecting him to gloat since he'd been proven right. We'd won the duel, and I expected him to tell me that that was all that mattered. But Yami's eyes were still wide open. No one would mistake him for Yugi though – he didn't look innocent; he looked haunted and somewhat lost.

He said, "I'm the one who learned something about trust… that it's most precious when it's least deserved. Thank you."

At Alcatraz, I'd thrown Yami a card. He'd put it in his deck without hesitation, without even looking at it, ignoring Jounouchi yapping away at him that it must be a trap.

"You trusted me in your duel with Malik even though you had no reason to. I haven't forgotten," I said.

"I always have reason to trust you. I know you. Remember that as well," Yami answered.

The swords disappeared. The cords from Swords of Revealing Light were still around my wrists however, tying my hands behind me. I struggled to get free, wondering why they hadn't vanished.

Mocking laughter interrupted us. The Witty Phantom applauded lightly. "Such a touching ending to this little morality play we've been engaged in… the lovers reunited, the villain vanquished, life lessons learned..."

"Speaking of that… we won. Shouldn't you be dead?" I asked.

"Don't worry… my demise is imminent," he said as he strolled up to me. He grabbed my shirt and pulled it over my head, further trapping my arms in its sleeves.

"Consider it a parting gift. You did say I was useful," he said, as his form disintegrated.

"I don't get it," I said, still straining to work the cords loose. "Why didn't these bonds vanish?"

"I think I'm going to enjoy this part of the challenge," Yami said thoughtfully. Then he grinned. His face had the same predatory look as when we dueled. He shrugged off his blue school uniform jacket, then stripped off the shirt under it. My lips suddenly felt dry. I licked them lightly. It didn't help.

Yami called in Respect Play, the card that lets duelists see each other's hands. Suddenly I saw myself through Yami's eyes: half-naked, hamstrung by my own shirt, wrists bound behind me. I looked like some random piece of porn off the Internet.

I don't know what Yami was getting from me as my half of Respect Play – confusion, probably. There's nothing right about being tied up and helpless… but this was different. I suddenly was aware of just how exposed I was, but although it made me squirm, it wasn't unpleasant. I was suddenly, almost painfully, aware of just how easy it would be for Yami to reach out and stroke my chest… to play with my nipples. How he could unzipper my pants while I stood bound in front of him.

The last thing I should have felt was desire. It went against every lesson that had ever been beaten into me, broke the rules that had been carved into my being along with each scar. I shouldn't be vulnerable; I shouldn't cede control to anyone or anything.

Most of all, I shouldn't find it hot, I shouldn't be leaning into Yami's touch, half mad with desire, I shouldn't be straining towards him so he could take my mouth as a prelude to claiming the rest. Yami kept insisting what we were doing wasn't a game. But it was a challenge. Everything is. I knew how I was supposed to feel: furious, ashamed and humiliated. But I didn't.

Standing here, tied up and half out of my mind with excitement was an odd place for an epiphany… unless it was about how good Yami's tongue felt, how it made me want to do things I'd never done – like beg for more – but I suddenly got something about trust in a way I never had before. It wasn't just about trusting Yami to have my back. I'd been doing that for a while. And hard as that had been, it was the easy part.

I trusted Yami to look at me half-naked and bound in front of him, one step away from pleading with him to finish the job and take me – and see what I'd never quite believed: that none of it added up to weakness. Even more, that in an odd way I was moving forward; I was fighting my own self-imposed taboos on what I could think or feel. That even tied up and helpless, I was still Seto Kaiba. I trusted Yami to see that, to believe it, even though I wasn't sure myself. I trusted that just as usual, Yami saw something in me even when I wasn't ready to see it myself. That he believed in my own strength just as I'd always believed in his own solidity, even before he'd proved it by fucking me senseless.

I knew with a sudden horrible clarity that I was never going to be able to hang onto this moment. I was never going to expunge the past and be someone different, someone that knew how to trust easily or well– and when I thought of how I had to protect Mokuba from the world we lived in, I didn't even want to. I was never going to be Yugi. And then I realized: Yami knew that, too.

I expected Yami to tell me that he expected better from me or that I'd disappointed him again. But Yami took my face in his hands and said, "It's okay, Seto. Let's fight one battle at a time."

His voice was husky, choked with desire. He stood on tiptoe; his mouth fit perfectly against the curve of my neck, his teeth worked the skin before he settled down to sucking as deeply as he could. Maybe it was an effect of Respect Play, but it was hard to tell which one of us was moaning. I could still sense Yami's desire; it mingled with my own until the matching strands were impossible to pick apart.

And he must have been reading me loud and clear because Yami was doing everything I wanted but had never asked for, at least not in words. His fingers trailed down my chest to play with my nipples, flirting from one to the other, teasing them until they were hard pinpricks, until I felt the ache down to my toes. I leaned in without thought, without plan. He didn't kiss me; he fucked my mouth with his tongue. I could feel his blood heat, feel it rush to his head then his groin as if it was surging in my veins instead.

I could feel Yami's heart race as he reached for the waistband of my pants, as he slid the fastening free, as he undid the zipper. I could feel his breath catch at the way my hipbone fit into the curve of his hand, as though it was made to rest in his palm. I was used to viewing my body as a weapon or a high performance machine; no one had ever taken such a simple joy in it before. And the pleasure he was taking in looking at me, in caressing every inch of skin, was stoking my own desire, like kindling thrown on an already out of control fire.

Luckily I didn't need my hands free to call in a card: Remove Trap. It swept Respect Play off the field. Yami was still caressing me; it was still hard to tell where his body ended and mine began, whether the ache I was feeling was mine or his. I bent towards him.

"The Puzzle is yours. Take it," I said hoarsely.

"Why?" he asked.

"I don't need it. And I don't need Respect Play… I don't need to see your thoughts to believe you care. I don't want to have the proof in front of me – not while we make love. That's what trust is, isn't it?" I asked, suddenly unsure.

His eyes went wide again. Once again, thankfully, he looked nothing like Yugi. "It is indeed," Yami said, sliding the Puzzle from my neck to his before pushing off his pants.

I felt Sword of Revealing Light's bindings disappear. I probably could have shrugged my wrists out of my shirt. But I didn't.

"I'm ready," I said. I meant it.

Yami grinned. I guess you can't make as many speeches as Yami without occasionally stumbling over exactly the right words.

As he reached for me that final time he said, "Of course you are. Trust is the ultimate aphrodisiac."

* * *

.

**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter and encouraging me to keep Kaiba tied up.**

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** A funny thing happened on the way to completing this chapter. I'd written a first draft and I was as sure as Yami that I knew what the duel was about: Kaiba was going to have to set up his cards for Yami to destroy to show that he trusted Yami, even when it went against his own self-interest.

Then Kaiba opened his mouth and asked Yami why, if he knew or guessed what was coming well enough to choose Ricochet as one of his seven cards, he didn't give Kaiba a heads-up. I admit my first response was to pretend I hadn't heard him and finish editing the chapter without his interference. But as soon as I heard it I knew that not only was that exactly what I thought Kaiba would say – but that he had a valid point as well. It wasn't just Kaiba's flaws on display here, but Yami's as well. He was totally high-handedly sure that he knew what Kaiba had to do. Just like in the duel in the last chapter, Yami's intention was caring, but his execution left a lot to be desired.

And then I realized that this chapter really was about trust after all – just not in the way I'd expected. Because sometimes trust isn't about trusting someone because they don't have any faults – it's also about knowing someone so well you trust who they are, even when they make mistakes, even when in trying to shore up your flaws they reveal their own.

_I'd love to know what you think. Comments are appreciated._

**Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my Live Journal account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated


	42. Controller of Chaos

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** You never see Yugi's mother or father in the anime and his mother only appears in one manga frame. Although it's a break with the manga, I'm going with my original impression from when I first watched the anime: that Yugi was raised by his grandfather.

 

* * *

**CHAPTER 42: CONTROLLER OF CHAOS**

" _You say goodbye and I say hello." – The Beatles_

… _And visa versa, of course._

**MOKUBA'S NARRATIVE**

The game must had gotten bored of messing with us because we reached the next safe house without a problem. I called for Noa to let him know we were okay. He had even better news for us. It was hard to believe Nisama was so close; just knowing that made me miss him even more, but I refused to cry again, especially for good news. Nisama never cried for anything. Noa reached towards me. For a moment, I could have sworn that he put his hand on my shoulder, but the feeling vanished.

Noa surprised me by turning to Yugi. I usually had to nudge him into including Yugi in the conversation.

"Seto wanted me to remind you of your promise to look after Mokuba. He wants you to stay at this safe house. They'll meet you before the next one," Noa told him.

"I don't want to wait!" I burst out.

"We don't care. We want to know you're safe," Noa said smugly.

I was going to argue, when it struck me that Noa had said "we" twice now. It figured they'd bonded over protecting me, without either of them stopping to realize I could take care of myself.

"It's great to hear you two finally sounding like a pair of brothers – even if you're both being ridiculous," I said.

"Well… cousins, maybe," Noa said, looking down and putting his hands in the pockets of his white shorts.

"Brothers," I answered firmly.

Noa looked up and laughed, his moment of shyness over. "Seto said you'd say that."

I grinned. They were conspiring against me.

"It's definitely a start," I agreed.

Noa laughed again. "Seto said you'd say that, too."

I turned to Yugi when Noa left. Despite my brother's orders, I was all for bypassing the safe house. I could see that Yugi was just as eager as me. He insisted that we had to stop , but I figured it wouldn't take much to push him into changing his mind.

"C'mon, Yugi! If we skip the safe house, we can catch up with them that much sooner," I begged.

"You heard Noa," Yugi answered.

"But don't you miss Yami?" I asked, putting on my best pleading face, the one I felt guilty turning on my brother, but figured was fair game to use on everyone else.

Yugi sighed. "You know that I want to see them as bad as you."

"So you'll do it?" I asked eagerly.

"You know I can't. Your brother was really clear. He's your guardian. I couldn't look him in the eye if I didn't follow his instructions to the letter."

"You couldn't look him in the eye anyway, not unless you got on a chair," I pointed out, starting to get pissed off.

"I promised your brother," Yugi repeated, sounding as stubborn as Nisama.

"I'm twelve!" I protested. "I'm sick of being treated like a child. When Nisama was my age he was looking out for himself _and_ me!"

Yugi sighed again. "I think you're complaining about that to the wrong person."

It took me a minute to get it.

"What's wrong with you? I couldn't say anything like that to Nisama! How ungrateful do you think I am anyway?" I yelled.

Yugi sighed for a third time, and looked around like he wished someone would pop in and help out. I felt a little bad. I liked Yugi; he was the nicest person I'd ever met. But mean as it sounds, when I was frustrated or angry, I kind of liked being a brat to him, too.

I smiled and shrugged, hoping Yugi would accept it in place of an apology. Since it was Yugi, he did.

"It's okay, Mokuba. And you know your brother loves you. You can talk to him about anything."

"I couldn't whine to Nisama. You wouldn't complain to Sugoroku after all he's done for you."

Yugi looked startled. His eyes opened even wider than usual – and that was quite a trick.

"He didn't have to look after you, either," I pointed out.

"Of course he does. He's my grandfather…" Yugi's voice trailed off. He frowned, then bit his lower lip before saying, "I guess you're right, Ji-chan could have dumped me just like your relatives did… but I can't imagine him doing that, can you?" He paused again. "I was lucky. I never realized just how much."

"I was lucky too. Nisama was there for me, just like your grandfather was for you," I said defiantly.

I waited to see if Yugi would disagree or bring up Death-T, but he didn't.

"Then let's do what your brother wants and get into the safe house," Yugi said.

It was hard to argue after that, although I dragged my feet crossing the threshold.

This one looked like it had been thrown around in a tornado. It was slightly off kilter and a tree had flattened part of the roof. If my brother had been trying to say that homes – and the families that live in them – are more fragile than we'd like to think, he couldn't have done a better job if he'd spray painted it on the walls.

As usual, Yugi tried to reach Sugoroku, but the old guy wasn't there. He had better luck with Anzu.

"I've seen them. They're fine. They said they haven't faced anything they couldn't handle," she said as soon as she appeared.

"Nisama looked okay? Did you talk to him?" I asked in a rush.

She nodded, and repeated, "I saw them both. Don't worry."

Something was off about her smile. I tried to figure out what she was avoiding saying.

"Are Nisama and Yami really getting along? Like no fights or anything?"

"They're getting along… just fine." She paused and tried again. "This game… they might be a little different when you see them, but they're both good… everything's good."

My voice rose in panic. "Sugoroku said that too. I don't get why you guys keep talking about Nisama being different. I mean he's still my brother, right? It's not like…"

She interrupted me, "Of course he is! And he's so proud of you. I told him how awesome you are." She laughed, and this time it sounded natural. "It's probably the first thing I've ever said that he agreed with wholeheartedly. And I know I've never seen him smile nicely and mean it before." She leaned over and hugged me. I wished that Nisama had put her avatar in a sweat suit or anything but a shiny gold bikini. I looked down, which made things worse. I was relieved when she straightened up and turned to Yugi. "It was just a shock… seeing Yami… seeing them both after all this time," she said.

Yugi nodded. "I can't wait to get home. I miss you."

She smiled, but she was back to looking a little teary. I'd been trying to stop crying so much, but it's easier for girls to bawl their eyes out. "I miss you too," she said to Yugi. "I didn't realize how much until you went away."

Yugi grinned. "I'll get back as soon as I can. I promise. It's just… what's going on in here… the way Kaiba's adoptive dad and the others have twisted things… it's wrong. I have to make sure they don't get back to our world, that they can't hurt you and to Ji-chan. I never wanted anyone… I never wanted you to worry about me. I can do this; I know I can. I have to."

My brother wouldn't have bothered explaining himself; Yami would have made a speech. Yugi was stumbling along, unraveling his thoughts as he was saying them – but he was just as determined – and in his own way, just as tough. It had taken coming here to realize that there was more than one way to be strong.

"I know," Anzu said. "Here I am talking about Kaiba or Yami changing… and you… sometimes I think you've changed most of all."

"No. I haven't," Yugi said seriously. "I'm never going to be confident like Yami, like I was born a pharaoh even if I don't remember it." He looked at me and grinned. "Your brother told me I was an overly deferential bully magnet."

I stifled a laugh. I could just hear Nisama saying that.

"Kaiba said what? Just wait until I see that jerk again!" Anzu yelled. "I'm sorry I was so nice to him!"

"He meant it as a compliment… well kind of. And he was right. I still worry all the time that I'm going to screw up, that I'm just Yugi, not someone big or special. But I'm here and I'm going to do what I can."

"That's special, too," Anzu said.

I gave the biggest yawn I could manage and headed out of the room. "I'm beat. I'm checking out the beds," I said. I rolled my eyes as I left. Yugi was hopelessly inept at asking Anzu out. I mean… Anzu was practically in her underwear. She was standing there telling him how great he was. And what did Yugi do? He started off by telling the girl he liked that he wasn't anything much and then spent the rest of his time talking about other guys. But even though he'd probably screw things up, the least I could do was give him some privacy.

 

* * *

**KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

One minute they were a speck in the distance, the next minute, Mokuba was in my arms, his own were wrapped tightly around my waist. I'd been dreaming of this moment for weeks; now I was only able to keep on my feet because I was the older brother and I had to stay upright so Mokuba would have someone to lean on while he cried. It was all I could do to hang on to him, trying to absorb that he was here, that we were hugging each other, that we were finally together.

"Mokuba…"

He sobbed louder as I mumbled his name. I raised one hand to brush his hair off his face, not caring that my fingers got tangled in the snarls in his mane. His head came a little higher on my chest than I remembered. I wondered if he had grown while we'd been apart. It was hard to judge given that I was leaning over him until I was bent almost double.

"It'll be okay Mokuba. We're together. Don't cry," I said quietly, just like I had all those times back at the orphanage.

He didn't stop sniffling but I could feel him nod against my chest.

"I know. I've missed you so much, Nisama," he choked out; his words were muffled by my shirt.

"Me too, Mokuba," I said.

I wanted to see his face (not that the image stored in my memory needed refreshing) but I didn't want to let go of him, not even for the second it would take to scan every detail. I settled for brushing my lips against the top of his head, for breathing in his slightly gamey, pre-teen scent.

I looked over at Yami. I didn't know how I felt seeing him crying on Yugi's shoulder, clutching Yugi like he was never going to let go. They kept mumbling "partner" over and over like it was the only word they knew. Yami had sobbed in my arms once – when we'd realized how close we were to this reunion. He'd leaned into me, too limp with relief to stand, so deeply in my embrace that my trench coat had reached around to blanket him. But Yami and I had been alone then; doubly so, in a way; we'd been not just in this game but in our own world within it. Now we were back with the others and Yami was crying in Yugi's arms, not mine.

Yami looked up at me over Yugi's shoulder. I wondered if he liked being taller.

"We did it, Seto," he said, smiling and looking like he was going to start crying all over again. "We did it together."

Things seemed to fall into place again, at least for me. I saw Yugi's head jerk up as Yami called me by my given name. It was possible he'd never heard anyone use it before.

I nodded to Yugi. "Thank you for watching over Mokuba," I said.

Yugi looked at my brother and smiled. "Mokuba and I helped each other."

"And now that we're together, I'm not letting anything separate us ever again," Mokuba said.

I gripped him even tighter. "I know," I said.

Yami and Yugi separated a bit although Yami still had his arm around Yugi's shoulders. We had to backtrack to the safe house Yami and I had passed, but no one was moving. There was so much we had to tell each other. It was hard to know where to start, especially since all I wanted to do was hug Mokuba and kiss Yami; except that was one more thing we had to explain. We stood there looking awkwardly at each other. I was more convinced than ever that words are over-rated, except Mokuba was whispering, "I love you, Nisama," against my chest.

I should have been grateful for anything that offered a distraction… until I caught sight of Pegasus walking up to us. I groaned. Even though I'd known he was here, part of me hadn't wanted to believe it.

"Did you think you could throw a party and forget to invite me, Kaiba-boy? I'm injured."

"What are you doing here?" Mokuba demanded, turning around at the sound of Pegasus' voice. I put my hand on his shoulder.

Pegasus raised a hand to his forehead and sighed loudly enough to be heard in the back row of an old-fashioned theatre. "One could almost imagine that you're less than thrilled to see me."

"Get real," Mokuba muttered.

"A singularly inappropriate expression under the circumstances, my diminutive friend. I'm as real as anything else here. I even brought a housewarming gift." Pegasus looked at Yami. "Although one of you opened yours before I could properly present it. Don't worry, I'll overlook the obvious gaucheness in doing so."

"Kaiba saw you'd uploaded the cards. At first we couldn't use them," Yami said.

"Possibly it was my presence here that activated them," Pegasus said.

"Possibly you designed them that way," I observed.

Pegasus drawled, "Possibly. That doesn't erase their utility. I don't imagine you're complaining about the results?"

Yami smiled. "No, I'm not. Thank you," he said.

"Nor are they my only present," Pegasus announced.

"If you really wanted to help," Mokuba said, "why didn't you just whip up a card that would make us win?"

"My dear boy – that would be cheating," Pegasus said as he raised a hand to his mouth in mock surprise.

Mokuba snorted. "Like that's ever bothered you before."

"You wound me. I've never cheated. I've simply used my advantages to win. It wouldn't have worked, anyway. Anything I did had to fit into the nature of the game. You should be grateful. Your enemies could change parts of its coding, but even your adoptive father couldn't change its core."

"I can't either," I said.

"No. You must learn to work within it. Up 'til now the game has been focusing on your conflicts. I imagine it's kept you busy. This world will respond to you most of all. You are its creator. But you must embrace its purpose."

I snorted. How like Pegasus to blather on about something so obvious. "Tell me something I don't know."

"I'm impressed. You've surpassed me. I admit that freely now that it no longer matters," he said.

"Why doesn't it matter? What game are you playing?" I asked. I brushed aside Pegasus' praise. Whether it was genuine or not, anything Pegasus said or did was for his own purposes, not mine.

"Still so suspicious? I've played my last game. There are now four of you…"

"Four of us?" Yugi squeaked, looking at Yami.

"It's hard to explain…" Yami said. "I used the Millennium Items… I was trying to see inside myself, to see if I had a future. At first… I was dying, Yugi. Then I played the Phoenix Reborn and…" He held out his hands, palms upward. "I don't understand it, but I'm here in my own body. I'm me, not a part of you."

"Yami! That's wonderful!" Yugi yelled, jumping into Yami's arms and starting to cry all over again.

Pegasus cleared his throat loudly, probably annoyed at being upstaged.

"As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, there are now four of you and – thanks to me – four pods leading to the outside world."

"You mean?" Yami asked.

"You're slower usual. Yes, if you win, all four of you can return in my place."

"We can't let you do that! How could you even think we'd go along with anything like that?" Yugi yelled. He was angrier than I'd ever seen him – which was probably a good indication of just how badly he wanted to accept.

"My wife is here. Believe me, I'm not thinking about you at all," Pegasus said, sounding serious – and honest – for once.

"I can't allow you to exchange your life for mine," Yami stated.

"What a big ego you have. Who says I'm doing it for you? The fact that you're benefiting from my actions is merely a happy coincidence."

"I know how real the Millennium Items' illusions can be… how you can get trapped in them. I almost followed them to my death. I can't let that happen to you," Yami said urgently.

Pegasus looked amused. "You seem to have all forgotten one important point – you can't stop me. Did you think I would neglect such a routine detail as changing the coding on the pods to ensure I had a one way trip here? I have to wonder though, if Kaiba-boy here was part of this world, would you be quite so adamant about leaving him? It's easy to make speeches about rejoining the outside world when everything you desire is – or will be – there."

Without quite meaning to, I glanced down at Mokuba. He was still at my side. His nose had scrunched up as he tried to puzzle it out. I was reminded again that I was going to have to tell him that I had… that Yami and I had become… I would have to explain about Yami. My gaze slid to Yugi. He was older; I could almost see the synapses firing in his brain as he tried to figure it out.

"I can't accept," Yami said flatly.

Pegasus shrugged. "So don't. It doesn't matter to me. I went to considerable trouble to get here because this is where I want to be. What you do is none of my business."

"When we win, I'm going to seal this game off again. You won't be able to contact us, and you'll have no way to leave," I informed him.

"I know."

"You'll be trapped here," Yugi said, as if I hadn't explained it clearly enough.

"I'll be spending eternity with my beloved Cynthia."

"If I can figure out a way to delete this world, I'm going to take it," I told him.

"None of us gets to decide how long eternity lasts," he said, playing with the ruffles at his wrists, to all appearances completely absorbed in the task of getting the folds to lie properly.

"In your case it might be very short," I pointed out.

"I doubt it. I know you saw the hieroglyphics. _All that happens here becomes real._ Did you think they were there as a design? They weren't – and those words apply just as much to this world as to Yami's new body. You may be able to quarantine this world, but you won't be able to destroy it."

I nodded. As much as I hated to admit it, I'd come to the same conclusion.

"You're so delightfully predictable," Pegasus said to me. "No arguments on how I should live my life to babble on about?"

I shrugged.

"It must be nice having no moral compass to worry about. Your companions should take a lesson from you," he murmured.

I shrugged again. "I've done my part to make the risks clear."

"And I'm prepared to face them," Pegasus said.

"Then what more is there to say?" I asked, wondering if Pegasus was right and regardless of everything that had happened, I still didn't have any scruples I wasn't prepared to throw overboard at the first opportunity, or if it was just that – despite knowing that Yami and Mokuba would disagree – other things were more sacred to me than my life. "Your choices aren't my business. I wouldn't let the opinions of a random bunch of ignorant acquaintances – no matter how well meaning – sway me. I wouldn't let anyone dictate how I should live my life or stop me from doing whatever I had to in order to get back anything so crucial that I'd lost. Everyone has the right to carve out their own path for themselves… even if they have to scratch it out of bare rock, and pay for every inch of the way with their blood. I'd never cede that right to anyone. I'll never renounce that obligation. Why should you?"

Pegasus laughed. "Always marching to your own drummer, aren't you Kaiba-boy?"

I felt Mokuba's arms steal around my waist again, felt his head against my chest. I glanced down. Not even Pegasus' presence could keep a small smile from my lips.

"We could get home without your help," I told Pegasus.

"Not as safely or as easily. And someone as paranoid as you must know that you can't leave a VR pod just lying around. I've altered the programming. The pods won't accept me – but do you really want to risk someone – or something – else escaping?"

He scanned the four of us. "I didn't think so. Since you can't shut this world down, the simplest solution is to have someone watch over it. Behold me: the king of all I see. Who better to guard this place than someone who has no interest in rejoining your world, and every intention of seeing that this realm stays safe and separate?"

"Realm? Give me a break," I groaned.

"I think being lord of the castle will suit me very well, don't you?"

"But… you know how this game works. You'll have to lose your wife over and over," Yugi said.

"Only until I can figure out how to free her." Pegasus looked at me. "Your adoptive father wasn't the only one insane enough to try to capture a loved one electronically. I uploaded the program before I came. She's in here, waiting for me to make her live again." He turned to face Yugi and Yami again. "Don't you understand? I've held her in my arms. If you think I'm leaving, you're even crazier than I am."

That seemed to shut even Yugi and Yami up.

Pegasus said to Yami, "Satisfy my curiosity. After Duelist Kingdom you could have imposed a penalty game. It certainly would have fit in with your previous conduct. You didn't. Why?"

"You had told me that the Millennium Items were evil in nature," Yami answered, looking surprised by the question.

"And it was that important to prove me wrong?" Pegasus asked.

"It was that important to prove I had a choice: that my actions could speak for themselves, that they alone would determine good and evil," Yami said, snapping right back into self-righteous speech mode.

"And I thought you were all bound up with finding your destiny. Has Kaiba-boy converted you to believing solely in free will?" Pegasus said.

"Maybe learning that I had choices was my destiny. It led me here," Yami said.

"It did the same for me. I was meant to be with Cynthia. Even her death can't change that," Pegasus said.

Pegasus called in Thunder Unicorn and put his arms around the animal's neck. I groaned at the unbelievably tacky picture they made. Thunder Unicorn was indigo blue, with a garish golden mane and a lightning bolt shaped horn. Pegasus was in his usual crimson suit. Before I could voice my opinion on the eye searing color combination chosen by someone who considered himself an artist, Pegasus mounted and rode off, calling over his shoulder, "Don't worry. I'll be back. I have some dreams of my own to hunt down."

I waited until Pegasus was out of earshot.

"Once and for all, there is no such thing as destiny! Our actions and our choices are the only things that determine the shape of our lives," I said.

"But given who we are, weren't those choices inevitable, wasn't the path laid before us even as we build it for ourselves?" Yami asked. "Tell me, Seto Kaiba, of all the good and bad choices you've made, would you change any of them?"

I stroked Mokuba's hair again. "There's one decision I'd give anything to take back."

"But even when you look back at the worst moment of your life…" Yami began, as usual not giving any quarter when he had a point to make.

I swallowed, seeing Mokuba's face in the Death-T monitors, staring at me in disbelief and despair as I sentenced him to death.

"Tell me…" Yami continued, "could you have chosen differently and remained Seto Kaiba?"

Mokuba answered for me, after a fashion. He looked at Yami in awe and said, "I've been trying to tell him that for ages.

 

* * *

**PEGASUS' NARRATIVE**

I tapped on the rune next to Anzu's brook, wondering if I should be praying for a man-eating tiger to appear instead. It might have been easier to face.

Alas, my luck has never worked that way.

I'd seen her avatar on my computer, edited in her facial features and body type. But there was something about Anzu that couldn't be confined by pixels, couldn't be summed up in color coding. Even the combination of gold lame and thigh high patent leather boots couldn't make her look cheap.

My little apricot girl had tears in her eyes.

"My goodness," I said, hoping to distract her by pointing to the hot pink halo above her head that read, "Obligatory Healing Bimbo." It didn't work. The tears fell anyway. Cynthia had cried when she knew she was going to leave me. Anzu was crying because this time, I'd been the one to depart. I was far too young to be Anzu's father (please, even I'm not that precocious!) but I wouldn't have minded having her for a niece. Cynthia would have liked her.

"Don't worry about me. I've already imported every episode of Funny Bunny. With that and my beloved, what more do I need for happiness?" I said.

"How are you?" she asked.

I didn't pretend it was a conventional greeting.

"I've seen her disappear three times. I've held her in my arms only to have her vanish before I could close them around her."

"I'm so sorry," she said, crying again.

"Don't be. Maybe I have to learn to accept her loss before I can be reunited with her. This game seems to love irony… or perhaps it's just that life does."

She paused, then said, "But even if she… comes back, won't you still have to spend all your time fighting monsters?"

"There's only been one challenge in my life – and this is it. This world isn't about defeating enemies, it's about rebuilding your world – whether from the inside or out. That's what I'm doing. There's more than one kind of winning, and I've never been interested in shallow victories. This one will last forever."

"Love is stronger than anything," she agreed. "Don't lose hope."

"I won't. I'm almost there. What of you, apricot girl?"

"I fell in love with a mysterious, powerful stranger who'd saved my life." She laughed. "I always thought I was so much smarter than the girls in my class… the way they'd giggle over movie stars or singers. But I wasn't, was I? I might as well fallen in love with Batman. It's one thing to hang on to love when you find it… but even here, you can't hang on to a mirage. And sometimes when you do that you miss what's in front of your nose. Besides it's one thing to try and find my dreams, another to destroy a friend's to make them come true."

"I don't know the girls at your school, but you're far wiser than I was. I tried to buy my dreams with Yugi and Kaiba and Mokuba's sacrifices. Now the only pain I'm offering in payment is my own."

I looked again at the legend above her head and couldn't resist chuckling. She saw the direction of my gaze and muttered, "Boys are such jerks."

"Indeed," I agreed. "Just when you think Kaiba-boy is an arrogant bastard beyond reclaim, he does something so childishly stupid, it makes you wonder if there's hope for him after all. Or is his redemption too much to hope for even for one as generous as you?"

"I wish… just once he'd look at me and recognize that even if he won, I'd been his rival. But I wasn't. And Yami wouldn't even know what I was talking about." She wiped her eyes. "I'm being silly. I was worried about you, and here you are trying to make me feel better!"

"And you have no love for re-enacting Romeo and Juliet unless it's in a ballet… where you deserve to be the leading lady."

She blushed. For the first time the pause between us was awkward.

"Tell me how life goes on in Domino," I said.

"You're all over the news saying that an unprecedented merger is about to take place and everyone should stay tuned for the announcement. According to the television you're leaving Industrial Illusions to pursue 'artistic concerns.' I saw you make the announcement myself. How did you do it?"

I laughed. "I'm in a virtual world so real I can see and smell and touch it – and you're asking how I managed a relatively trivial bit of sleight of hand like faking an announcement and press conference?"

She laughed. "I miss you – even if you did lie to me."

"I didn't!" I protested, my eyes as wide and guileless as Yugi's. I laughed as she narrowed hers in response. "I said that I knew how to find my way home. It's taken me a long time, and I've done too many things I regret along the way… but I finally have."

"That wasn't what I meant and you know it!" she said, wagging a finger in front of my face.

"You don't have to search for your true home. It's right in front of you," I pointed out. "Soon you'll have Yugi back. Even if you never fall in love with the boy next door, he'll always be your friend."

"I wish you'd take your own advice," Anzu said. It was nice being scolded by her.

"Oh, but I did. For me, Cynthia _was_ the girl next door. And I'm never moving out of her neighborhood again."

 

* * *

.

**_Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter!_ **

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I was flipping through the Yu-Gi-Oh! card wikia looking for a horse for Pegasus to ride when I stumbled across Thunder Unicorn, and it stuck me: would Pegasus really ride around on an ordinary old horse when he could get on a unicorn instead? Things like that probably amuse me more than they should…

I can see Mokuba feeling way too obligated to (and protective of) his brother to complain or take things out on him. But it occurred to me, he might not mind getting to act like an unreasonable twelve year old around Yugi.

The rest of the reunion between the four of them continues in the next chapter…

**_Comments are always appreciated. I'd really love to hear from you._ **


	43. Generation Force

**ANNIVERSARY NOTE:** A month or so ago, I glanced at the Published Date on "Giving Up the Ghosts" and realized I'd started posting this story three years ago. Three years ago, today, to be exact. (Does that seem as strange to anyone else as it does to me?) I have to admit, if anyone had told me when I started that this story would take me three years (and counting) to tell, I'm not sure what my reaction would have been.

I'm not sure which is more humbling: realizing that there are people who've been reading this story as long as I've been writing it or realizing that there are people who joined way after it started, who didn't groan and keep scrolling when they saw the surprisingly large numbers of chapters that had piled up, but jumped in instead.

I'd like to thank everyone who's taken the time to comment. Sometimes I've gotten discouraged and felt like I was telling this ridiculously long, complicated story to myself – and then I'd hear from someone telling me what they thought. And every time, I feel like I've gotten a present. Writing can be such a solitary activity; hearing from you has made it communal.

And I can't end this Author's Note without thanking Bnomiko for listening and questioning and correcting and making the whole process so much more fun.

* * *

**CHAPTER 43: GENERATION FORCE**

_You could organize an entire college syllabus around the many Shakespearian siblings who are separated and reunited – only to discover that the person they've found isn't quite the one they lost._

**YAMI'S NARRATIVE**

Kaiba and I had passed a safe house on our way to meet our partners. Now the four of us were on our way back. I smiled as I walked, remembering the sight of Kaiba overwhelmed with joy, as he'd finally held his brother in his arms. Kaiba's shoulders and even his hands had shook with the force of his emotions as he'd buried his face in Mokuba's hair. Now they were walking slightly in front of us; Mokuba was chattering he alternated between walking and running, managing to keep pace with his brother's longer legs.

There was something right about walking with Yugi beside me, separate yet still moving in sync, each shared step confirming our bond. I was at peace. Until I noticed how every now and then, Kaiba would glance at me over his shoulder, before facing forwards, leaning slightly as though against the wind, although no breeze was blowing. It was an unsettling, troubled look, and Kaiba seemed to huddle more into himself with each backwards gaze.

It was strange to be next to Yugi, but distracted by Kaiba; it was a reminder of how much had changed. I caught Kaiba's gaze again. Was he afraid that my happiness at being reunited with Yugi had crowded out all the other delights in my life, including the joy of discovering him? We'd been together for so short a time in what had been, for him, a lifetime of isolation. I thought of Kaiba struggling to trust, and wanted to run to him, to catch him in my arms and kiss him senseless, until he remembered and believed again that I cared – but Mokuba was circling him like a noisy moon orbiting its sun. I smiled and nodded reassuringly at him the next time he turned his head, unsurprised to see his shoulders finally relax.

I was learning to read his silences.

"I guess that's the safe house," Yugi sighed when we arrived at our destination. I walked over to Kaiba. The four of us stared at the house, at the empty turrets, the roof dipping slate, the windows looking like shuttered eyes.

" _This_ is your idea of a safe house?" I asked incredulously.

Kaiba shrugged. "I didn't want company."

I looked from the crumbling ruin to Kaiba. It said a lot that this represented his idea of safety. I looked at the wreck again, thinking of Kaiba saying that his dreams were buried under the rubble of his past. It was almost an invitation to look deeper… if one dared.

"I think it's perfect," I said.

Mokuba must have called for Noa, because he appeared in front of us, smiling when he saw that we were all together. Kaiba greeted him, but as the exchange of news continued, Kaiba and I ended up standing side by side again while Mokuba and Yugi kept the conversation flowing.

"Congratulations on being reunited with your partner," Kaiba said, a slight emphasis on the word, "partner."

"Having one partner doesn't erase the need for another kind of union," I said, my voice too low to be heard by the others.

He looked at me with the wariness he showed only when he was starting to hope.

"I seem destined to keep repeating to you: your hopes are safe with me. Do I have to get furious with you to prove it?" I murmured.

Kaiba shook his head, relaxed and grinning now.

"Nothing to add?" I asked with false sweetness.

"Do you think I'm stupid enough to invite yet another lecture on trust?" Kaiba said.

I stood on tiptoe to whisper in his ear, "I can think of parts of our last exchange on the subject that I'm dying to repeat."

I stepped back to observe the effect of that remark. If it hadn't been bright sunlight, I would have missed the slight blush that hit each lean cheekbone.

"I can't wait to tell Yugi," I said.

"I have to talk to Mokuba, too," he agreed.

Noa left. Mokuba and Yugi entered the safe house. Kaiba and I crossed the threshold together, a little behind them. When we'd entered this game, I'd been a formless spirit, seeing the world through Yugi's eyes, living in it only to protect him or in those brief moments when I spoke to Kaiba at the end of each duel. My thoughts had been open to Yugi, just as I could read every mood as it flitted through his mind. Without even realizing it, I'd hidden how I felt about Kaiba, not just from Yugi, but from myself.

Then we'd come here and in such a short time, loving Kaiba had become part of my existence, his body as familiar to me as my own. And now I had to find the words to tell Yugi, when I'd never needed words before; once a stray thought would have said everything. It was strange to feel so linked and yet so solitary.

I was impatient. I wanted to drag Yugi somewhere private so I could tell him my news then go back and kiss Kaiba properly. But Yugi headed straight for the summoning runes, ignoring the threadbare brocade wallpaper and upholstery, the stained carpets, the cobwebbed-crusted, gilded ceiling, oblivious to the destroyed elegance surrounding us.

Jounouchi, Anzu and Honda appeared, gleaming in the room's candlelight.

"Wow! You're both here!" Jounouchi yelled, rushing over to hug me and Yugi, knocking our heads together in his eagerness to embrace us both at the same time. Bewilderingly, he was in a dog costume. I wondered briefly if I was dreaming, before accepting that it was just one more surreal detail in a game that was full of them. Jounouchi wagged his tail; it smacked me across the legs, then it swept back to hit Yugi with a thump.

"Yeah!" Honda yelled. Only his voice was recognizable; his face and body were completely, carefully nondescript. He jumped up and tried to wrap his arms around us and pound us on the back at the same time.

"Stop it before you two lunkheads hurt them!" Anzu scolded.

It felt like I was home.

We broke apart. I looked at the lettering hovering over their heads. Jounouchi's read, "Flea-Infested Best Friend." I glanced at Kaiba and was glad Jounouchi was looking the other way. Kaiba was grinning in satisfaction, silently congratulating himself on a job well done.

Jounouchi stared at us a moment, then burst out, "I always said Yami was taller! It's hard to tell though with all that hair. Come on guys, stand back to back!"

Yugi and I complied, then got scolded until we stopped laughing long enough for them to measure us.

"Okay, you were right. I could have sworn they were the same height," Honda said to Jounouchi.

Jounouchi nodded smugly and said, "Never bet against the guy with all the gambling cards in his deck." He looked around, taking in the opulent wreckage of the room. "Some décor," he added.

"I think it's cool!" Mokuba said belligerently. "It looks just like something out of a horror movie."

"Way to miss the point, kid," Jounouchi said with a laugh.

Mokuba looked annoyed, but he was much too happy at being reunited with his brother to hold a grudge. Instead he joined us as we stood in a circle while Yugi told the rest of the gang our news. Kaiba stood a little behind Mokuba, fading into the gloom.

Anzu sniffled quietly when Yugi finished.

"I'm happy for you… but I'm sad about Pegasus too," she said.

"But you think we're doing the right thing, don't you?" Yugi asked anxiously.

She nodded quickly. "Yes," she said without hesitation. "I saw him yesterday. This is what he's been looking for ever since we met him. I just wish things were different."

"Me too," Yugi agreed.

Kaiba hadn't spoken since the gang had arrived. "Where's Isono and Fubeta?" he asked suddenly. I wondered if he wanted to see a familiar face.

"Pegasus didn't make avatars for them. Man, Kaiba – you're checking up on your employees from inside a video game?" Jounouchi groaned.

Kaiba's lips tightened. "Tell Isono and Fubeta that I have every confidence in them."

Kaiba glanced at Mokuba. I didn't realize that Kaiba's fleeting look had been a signal – or an appeal – until Mokuba added, "We wanted to make sure they're okay." Mokuba paused and looked back at his older brother. Kaiba gave a slight nod and Mokuba said, "We were worried. We haven't seen or heard from them in ages."

"Hold on… they're in the lab. I'll tell them," Honda said and disappeared.

Yugi had pulled Anzu a little to the side during the brief exchange. I couldn't hear what they were saying and didn't want to intrude. She was taller than Yugi… taller than the both of us, actually. I'd never really noticed before. Kaiba was looking at them as well – or more specifically at Anzu's feet. Her right leg was in front of her left. Her feet were pointing in opposite directions. I'd gotten used to her standing like that.

"Do you dance?" Kaiba asked abruptly. I remembered him repeating Yugi's comments about dance rehearsals to me. I should have known Kaiba wouldn't let anything that baffled him, even a trivial mystery like this one, remain unsolved.

Anzu narrowed her eyes as she shifted slightly to face him, "Do all billionaires make a hobby of spying on everyone they meet?"

"I don't know what billionaires you've been hanging around with lately, but I only keep tabs on people likely to be threats – or enemies."

"Wow… that takes in a lot of territory," Jounouchi broke in.

I choked back a laugh. Kaiba glared at Jounouchi but didn't speak. Clearly his resolve to be polite to my friends was going to be tested today.

"Then how did you know?" Anzu asked.

Kaiba glanced at Yugi. I'd seen Yugi confront life or death situations less nervously. He swallowed and stared at Kaiba, eyes wide with alarm. Kaiba's face wasn't designed to show reassurance – even to Mokuba – but he nodded slightly at Yugi.

"You're standing in fourth position," Kaiba said to Anzu.

"You dance?" Anzu asked, her eyes widening in surprise.

"No. I had to attend the ballet as part of my education," Kaiba said.

"Did you like it?" Anzu asked eagerly.

"Enjoyment was irrelevant. I stayed awake and alert and could talk about it afterwards in a way that made me appear knowledgeable and well rounded."

Anzu looked a little deflated by his detached response. I looked at Kaiba's expressionless face and wondered what the punishment had been for fidgeting.

Yugi took Anzu's hand. "I love watching you dance. I can't wait to get home and come to your next recital."

Anzu smiled. She blinked hard, holding back tears.

"Me too," she told him.

"Well, this is a new experience," Kaiba whispered to me. "Every time I've seen her she's been yelling – usually at me."

"You've deserved it each time," I assured him.

"Where's Ji-chan?" Yugi asked.

"He's taking a nap. We didn't want to wake him," Jounouchi said.

"Good. He's old," Kaiba said.

Jounouchi's mouth dropped open. "Since when do you give a damn what happens to Yugi's grandpa? This must be one hell of a game if it's made you care about anyone but yourself and Mokuba. You think I got amnesia along the way and forgot that you were the one to try and kill the old guy?"

Kaiba pressed his lips together but he didn't – or wouldn't – answer. His arms were tightly crossed in front of his chest. The fingers of his right hand were tapping against his left arm.

"I know what I did," he finally said, his voice perfectly level.

"Jounouchi!" Yugi protested.

Jounouchi turned to Yugi. "You're the one who cuts everyone slack and who always knows that people are better than they seem, not me."

"But Kaiba's changed since then. You know that!" Yugi insisted.

"Do I know he's not about to go crazy again and try to murder us all? Yeah, sure, I've known that for a while. That's not the point." Jounouchi looked at Kaiba and said, "I'm not going to pretend everything's been settled between us when it hasn't."

Kaiba stared at him, unblinking. Only the continued tapping of his fingers against his crossed arms gave any sign he was listening to Jounouchi at all. Jounouchi paused, but Kaiba remained silent.

"You tried to kill us all because… Hell, I have no idea what Death-T was about. And it doesn't matter, I've forgiven worse. But then we started working together, helping each other, even if you're too much of an arrogant bastard to admit that's what's been going on… and in all the time we've been saving each other's butts on a regular basis, would it have killed you to admit that you were wrong, or even that you're sorry?"

To my surprise, Kaiba took Jounouchi's question seriously. He drew in a breath and straightened his back even further. "Yes. Once it would have seemed like death. I deserved everything that happened to me at Death-T and more. Yugi triumphed over me on every level. He didn't win because of his skills, but because his beliefs were truer, because I'd lost my way and he hadn't. How could anything have been a more complete admission of my weakness than being spared from my own well-earned destruction by my enemy? What would an apology from me have meant in the face of such a total defeat?"

"Dude, you are seriously fucked up," Jounouchi said, but for once, he said it gently. "It would have meant you noticed we existed."

"You're pretty hard to ignore," Kaiba said, smirking slightly.

I don't know if Jounouchi could be heard back in the computer lab, or if Sugoroku had a natural sense of timing, but his avatar joined us.

"Ji-chan!" Yugi yelled, running up to his grandfather and hugging him. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. I was just resting. I'm old enough to know my limits." He turned to Kaiba. "You have a comfortable couch in the lab."

Kaiba shrugged. "Take it home with you."

Honda returned as well, saying, "The way Isono and Fubeta were grinning, you would have thought I'd just given them a bonus – or at least a bag of doughnuts."

Kaiba nodded. "Thank you."

Sugoroku smiled. "It sounds like I got here at the right time."

Yugi looked at the lettering around his grandfather's head, then at Anzu. "I can't wait until we get back and I don't have to look at those stupid put-downs anymore," he said.

Kaiba groaned. "You won some of the challenges here. You looked out for Mokuba. I owe you. If you want me to try and get rid of the titles, I will."

"But won't you have to win a challenge to do that?" Anzu interrupted.

"Yeah. That's the way it works," Kaiba answered.

"Then you picked to wrong time to start caring about other people's feelings, Seto Kaiba! How dare you think of wasting a victory in one of these ridiculous and dangerous games on something so foolish!" she yelled. "Yugi doesn't like your childish titles, but he wasn't suggesting anything so stupid, were you, Yugi?"

Yugi opened and shut his mouth, then smiled at her.

"Of course you weren't! I knew that!" she announced triumphantly. "These ridiculous put-downs are annoying, but it's not like they can hurt me – but if something happened to you, because you were trying to erase them…"

"It's okay," Yugi said. He hugged her.

Kaiba rolled his eyes and asked, "How many times do I have to point out that I never intended for any of you to be in this game at all?"

"But you designed these avatars with us in mind, didn't you? This is how you really see us," Anzu challenged.

Kaiba grimaced. He turned to Sugoroku. "For what it's worth old man, I don't think you're senile." He looked at Anzu. "And you saved Mokuba back at Battle City. I know that." He moved to Honda next. "I once compared you to a Rook. It's easily overlooked from its place in the corner – but there are no weak pieces on the back row of a chessboard." He came full circle, stared at Jounouchi in his dog costume and laughed – but for once it didn't sound nasty. "I have to admit, I outdid myself on that one."

"You just never learned to quit when you're ahead, did you?" Jounouchi said.

"Nope. I never quit and I'm always ahead," Kaiba answered, his smirk firmly back in place.

"Well, I guess it's a start," Yugi mumbled.

* * *

**MOKUBA'S NARRATIVE**

My brother practically dragged me into the nearest bedroom after the gang left. He shut the door with a bang, drew in a breath and leaned against it. Despite his hurry, the look on his face was reassuringly familiar: it was the same one he wore every time he gave me a product update or wanted to discuss a change in our business plan. I leaned against the back of a chair, expecting Nisama to run through the alterations he'd made in the game coding, so I was shocked by the words that actually made it out of his mouth.

"Do you remember my telling you about sex?" he asked abruptly.

It was pretty unforgettable. Nisama had been detailed and methodical, running through the major items: body parts and positions, mechanics, risks, warning signs, exit strategies and potential consequences, as if they were items to be checked off on an agenda. I think we'd both been relieved when he'd finished.

"I never mentioned feelings," Nisama said.

"Of course you did," I assured him. "You told me that people would use mine against me if I was dumb enough to let them see I had any."

"The whole time I was talking to you about sex, I never expected any of it to apply to me. It was easier thinking about it in the third person." Nisama paused and looked down. His lips twisted almost ruefully. He might have been smiling, but if so, it wasn't one I'd seen before and he smoothed out his face too quickly for me to be sure. He straightened up and faced me again.

"You deserve to hear it from me. Yami and I are fucking. I can't be sure but I think he wants to continue even after we get home."

My mouth dropped open. I shut it and stared. For once it was easy to read the emotion on his face: worry. And typically he'd only talked about Yami's expectations, not his. But his were the ones that mattered, at least to me.

"What about you? Is that what you want too?" I asked.

He nodded, keeping his eyes fixed on me, waiting for a reaction.

It suddenly hit me: Anzu and Sugoroku had known. _This_ was the change they'd been talking about. I'd promised myself I wasn't going to cry anymore, but in the second it took me to launch myself into his arms I was bawling like a baby all over again. I wondered if it counted as crying if you were laughing too.

"I'm so relieved," I sobbed.

I felt him stiffen in surprise. It made it hard to stop laughing.

"Everyone knew something they were afraid to tell me and Yugi. They kept saying you'd changed. I've been so scared. But this must have been what the old guy meant."

"What old guy?" he asked.

"Huh?" I said. "Oh… Yugi's grandfather."

"What did he say?" Nisama asked sharply.

"Not much. I got it wrong, anyway. I thought he was saying if you changed, you might not care about me anymore. I figured he was going senile or something if he thought that was ever going to happen."

"Why couldn't it?" Nisama said harshly. "I changed once before. I almost killed you."

"Are you kidding? Can you look me in the eye and say that just because you're with Yami, you don't care about me anymore? There's no way I'm believing that!" I said indignantly.

"Of course not. That's not the point, Mokuba." He sat down on a bed. A cloud of dust flew into the air, making it hard to see him for a second. "I don't know any more if I'm fighting Gozaburo or myself. And if I can't tell the difference, how can anyone else?"

"Anyone else?" I asked.

"Yami couldn't either. I don't blame him," he muttered.

"Well I do! If Yami thinks you're anything like Gozaburo, he's an asshole who isn't worth a second of your time!" I yelled. My brother didn't feel betrayed – but I did.

Nisama frowned. "He didn't. Not exactly."

"But you just said…" I started.

"I was fighting myself. It looked like Gozaburo. But Yami said it wasn't me… that it was all the things I…" My brother stopped talking.

"All the things…" I repeated, hoping he'd finish his sentence.

"All the things I'm afraid of becoming," he said, his words coming out in a rush. He released me, got up and started pacing.

I hadn't expected him to be able to get the words out – especially to me. And he'd defended Yami. Maybe Sugoroku did have a point; my brother was changing.

"Yami's special to you, huh?" I asked.

He stared at me and shook his head. "No. You're the most important thing in the world to me."

"I know that." I grinned. I loved hearing him say it. "But you care what Yami thinks."

"No."

The word came out automatically. I didn't bother arguing.

"He says he believes in me," Nisama continued, as if he wasn't contradicting himself. "I don't know why. He's seen how far Gozaburo branded himself into me. So have you."

"And we know how far you've come. You've never back-tracked in your life, Nisama. You're not going to start now. But you don't know that do you? And if I say it, you'll believe me, kind of – but five minutes later you'll forget. I bet you didn't believe Yami either, and he wouldn't lie. Not about this… well, not about anything, actually."

My brother ran his hand through his hair and dropped his gaze to the ground again. I'd never seen him look this exhausted. Even when he'd been up for days, he'd always been able to hide it.

"I didn't mean to say any of this. Not to you. I shouldn't…" He pressed his lips together and headed for the door.

"Why not?" My brother kept everything hidden and even though I hated hearing him beat up on himself like this, I didn't want him to stop talking.

"I'm the older brother," he said, as though that explained everything.

"And I want to help my older brother… or at least I want him to know I'm listening," I said.

Nisama moved back to the bed and sat down. "I've spent weeks trying to negotiate my way around everything that's hardwired into this game… and every time I do, it's a reminder of all the things I can't change or delete… all the things that can't ever be forgiven. I tried to kill you, Mokuba. I'd give anything to undo it, but I can't take it back or make it like it never happened."

"I know what you did." I paused and said the words. It was important that we both heard them. "You tried to kill me. We can't change that. I wish we could. Not just so I don't wake up screaming about it – so you don't either. But I'm not going to let the past rule our future."

"But what if that's who I am?" he asked.

"It isn't. I know that and you should too." I stood up. "Come with me. I have something to show you."

He hesitated. I knew this would be tough. There was no way he wanted to let me leave the safe house.

"This is important, Nisama. I swear I'll be okay."

I left the room and walked down the hall.

"Mokuba, wait!" Nisama yelled as I reached the front door.

I didn't look back as I crossed the threshold. I knew Nisama would follow.

I walked away from the house and waited for the challenge to start. I'd marched out of the door without looking back, just like my brother had taught me. Ever since I'd grown old enough to understand, I'd tried to protect my brother, to make things better. Now I was going to hurt him badly and scare him even worse.

When we'd first arrived in this world I'd wondered why I hadn't wound up back in Death-T, when I still had nightmares about it at home. But this game wasn't about scaring us shitless – although that had happened along the way. It was about looking at the parts of yourself you tried to shove out of sight, like hiding your pajamas after you've wet your bed. It was about facing your fears, not the ordinary everyday ones, but the ones that have the power to freeze you until you're brittle enough to shatter.

But I'd stared down Death-T until I knew it as well as I knew my brother. There was nothing left to hide. It had happened. My brother had been willing to kill me. I'd told myself that it had been the darkness; that it had been Gozaburo – but it had been my brother too, the part of him that had gotten twisted so badly he couldn't tell strength from weakness or love from hate.

But I believed in Nisama absolutely.

This was the only way. My brother wasn't good at listening; his guilt drowned out everything I tried to tell him until only static remained. But I trusted his game just like I trusted in him. The whole time we'd been apart all I'd wanted was to find Nisama and have everything go back to the way it was. Now I knew it couldn't. It was going to be better – and I had to do my part to make that happen.

I drew in a breath; the challenge would start soon. I had my seven cards picked out – although I only needed one. I wasn't fighting for a trophy or a title, or even to prove how tough I was; I was fighting for my Nisama, just like he'd always done for me. I knew beyond doubting that the brother who had tried to kill me was gone. Nisama didn't, and I was willing to risk everything to prove it to him.

Neither of us could live with any other answer.

* * *

.

**_Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter._ **

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** One of the reasons I set the story immediately following Battle City/Alcatraz was that I wanted to write about a younger, rawer Kaiba – one who's desperate to be free of his anger, hatred and bitterness, but at the same time he really doesn't see his way clearly, and is unsure if he has the capacity to let go of his demons. For all his outsized flaws, I admire the way Kaiba keeps questioning the values and beliefs that were born out of pain and sacrifice. This willingness to keep searching for what he somewhat melodramatically calls a true future where he's free of the hatred branded into his soul by Gozaburo make Kaiba, who's one of the most guarded characters in the series, also one of the most open. In this story, I wanted to put him in a situation where he couldn't run or hide or deflect his feelings behind his anger. But while Kaiba is the main character, I also wanted for each character to get the chance to do the same thing.

On a lighter note, imagining what a sex talk from Kaiba would sound like was a lot of fun!

**Kaiba and Yugi's friends:** I think the dynamic between Kaiba and Yugi's friends is a bit of a balancing act. By the end of Alcatraz, Kaiba and the Yugi-taachi have worked together, and even saved each other's lives. They're clearly allies. But however close they are to the border of friendship, I don't think they've crossed it.

Kaiba does respect for Yugi/Yami no Yugi by the end of the Alcatraz arc, but he's barely polite to him/them – and it's clear he doesn't know how to trust people. And when it comes to Yugi's friends, he can be coldly dismissive when he's not actively insulting them; he tried to kill them and never expressed the slightest regret. As they work together, Yugi's friends get to know and understand him better, recognize his good points and even feel some sympathy for him, particularly in Noa's World – but they also have valid reasons for disliking how he acts and (with perfect justification) aren't shy of telling him just what they think about his arrogant attitude. While they're willing to befriend just about anybody, Kaiba also has to be willing to meet them halfway. So while I think it's important to show they're growing more accepting of each other, it's also important to show that this isn't an uncomplicated relationship and there's a certain amount of antagonism there as well.

_Whether you liked the chapter or the reverse, I'd love to hear from you!_

**HAPPY HOLIDAYS and best wishes for the New Year!**


	44. Justice Strikes Back

**CHAPTER 44: JUSTICE STRIKES BACK**

_When Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his army in 49 BC, he set in motion a course of events that led to civil war, the death of a republic and the birth of an empire (who knew that George Lucas was a Roman History fan?) and not least – in fact, Julius Caesar probably considered it the most important detail in this little history – to his own assassination._

_As you can gather, the original Rubicon was a really big deal, especially to the thousands of schoolkids forced to memorize Shakespearian speeches on the event (most of whom probably wished Caesar had died peacefully in his bed.)_

_But doesn't the line separating childhood from adolescence form Rubicon of its own? Maybe there are all sorts of lines we cross every day without anyone noticing. And since these little mini-Rubicons are so private, we even get the chance to wander back and forth without anyone but ourselves and our loved ones being any the wiser._

**YUGI'S NARRATIVE**

Kaiba practically dragged Mokuba out of the room the second my friends had left. I was surprised he'd lasted that long. He threw another "thank you" at me over his shoulder. I said, "No problem," to the air.

For the first time in ages, Yami and I were alone together. Yami smiled at me and cleared his throat, reminding me of all the dust in the room.

"Come on," I said. "We'd better find a relatively clean bedroom with beds that won't fall apart when we look at them." I went into the hallway and ran up the stairs, skipping over the broken steps. I was used to Kaiba's safe houses by now. "If this sanctuary is anything like the others, we better head for whichever room looks like the biggest wreck from the outside – it's our only chance of finding someplace habitable."

"I would have expected no less. Just when you think you've reached Kaiba's core, there are always more layers to unpeel," Yami said. I turned around, surprised to see a smug smile on his face.

I went to the attic. The bottom of the door was in shreds. It looked like rats had eaten their way into the room. Perfect. I opened the door. As I'd hoped, it was a bedroom – probably the best one in the house. The beds were covered with faded crimson velvet embroidered covers that matched the deeper red brocade wallpaper. It would be like sleeping inside a freely bleeding wound, but at least it was clean.

"I feel like we haven't had a moment to ourselves since we met up again," I said. "Tell me everything!"

He smiled, but for the first time since I'd known him, Yami looked something less than totally confident. He cleared his throat again, even though there wasn't any dust up here.

"Yami? What's wrong? Did you find something out… about your past?" I asked.

"What? No. I'd almost forgotten. Strange, isn't it? I came into this game to find that very thing, only to learn that who I am was more important than who I was."

"That's great! I can't believe you're free of the Puzzle… of everything. How did you do it?"

"Each time I used the Millennium Items, I gained a piece of my past. And each time the trail led to the grave, until finally I used the last two Items and I could feel myself dying. I couldn't hang on to both the past and present; I chose this life, with you and Kaiba. I played one of the new cards Pegasus had created, Phoenix Reborn. It carried me back to you, burning all that was left of my past, destroying any chance of reclaiming those memories. I took the Puzzle off Kaiba's neck and put it around my own – and I didn't disappear."

I felt like an idiot. I'd seen that Yami was the one was wearing the Puzzle, not Kaiba, but I was so used to seeing it around our neck, I hadn't really taken it in.

I looked at him, hard. It was strange not to know what Yami was feeling. His words sounded a bit sad, but he didn't look sad, just a little more thoughtful than I was used to. I went through all the words I knew trying to find the right one to fit his mood. Pensive… that was it. Then Yami smiled and his face changed. I'd never seen him grin like that, looking ridiculously happy, a little bit shy – and remarkably like an ordinary teenager.

"It's amazing to know beyond doubt that every thought, every emotion, every action, is my own. I can acknowledge what I'm feeling and it's real in a way it never was before. That's a gift I never realized I was missing until I'd been granted it. To truly be able to…" Yami pressed his lips together and looked at me out of the corner of his eye, uncomfortable all over again. And I had no idea why.

It was weird seeing a Yami I didn't quite recognize. Yami had been the first person to believe I was more than the whiny cry-baby everyone else saw, the first to believe that I didn't need to toughen up to be a man. We'd been apart for weeks and now that we were finally together, I didn't have a clue what was going on in his head; I couldn't hear his voice in mine. I was alone even though Yami was standing right next to me.

"Yugi…" he began to say.

"I've missed you," I interrupted.

"You too," Yami agreed, and his familiar, friendly smile was back.

"It's never going to be like it was before, though. I'm going to miss that a little… knowing what you're thinking as well as I know myself, feeling you beside me though everything I do. It's like losing an extra sense of hearing or something," I said.

I was used to sharing my thoughts with Yami. But I would have given anything to take that one back. With those few words his face had shut down, the almost giddy joy I'd seen minutes ago was gone.

"Don't worry; we can fix this," he said. "Maybe if you went through with the Puzzle and I didn't use the pod, everything would go back to the way it was."

"No! That's not what I meant, Yami!"

"If it makes you unhappy…" he said.

I had to stop this. I couldn't let a couple of careless words ruin his life before he had a chance to live it.

"No! I'm thrilled. It's just that, even after all this… I'm used to depending on you and sometimes I get scared. But when you know something's right, you just got to keep moving forward and leave your doubts behind in the past where they belong," I said, for once, matching Yami's ability to make speeches at the drop of a hat.

The expression on Yami's face stopped me short. He was shaking. It took me a minute to recognize that he was trying to keep from laughing hysterically.

"Damn… I've been in this game too long. I sounded just like Kaiba, didn't I?" I asked.

Yami nodded and gave up trying to keep from laughing. I'd never heard him giggle before. I wondered if, even after all we shared, there were sides of him I still had to learn about. And I suddenly realized that would be okay. Whatever changes came up we'd learn to roll with them as friends. And the thought of me echoing Kaiba… before I knew it, I was laughing along with Yami.

"Are you sure? I'd do anything to make you happy," Yami said.

"Positive!" I answered, smiling as Yami relaxed.

"I came into this game searching for a past. Instead I gained a life – one I can live with you and Kaiba," Yami said, looking thoughtful again.

It was funny the way Yami kept bringing up Kaiba every time he talked about living. Now that I thought about it, I remembered that Pegasus had said something about Yami and Kaiba, too. I hadn't paid much attention because I was used to Pegasus not making any sense. But now I couldn't help feeling like I'd missed something. Yami cleared his throat again.

"How did you two get along?" I asked at the same time Yami starting speaking again.

"Kaiba and I were intimate," Yami said.

I thought I'd gotten used to just how strange this game was – I mean Jounouchi was dressed like a dog – but this was one curveball I hadn't seen coming.

"Intimate? You mean like sex?" I wondered why my voice always came out in a squeak at all the wrong moments.

Yami nodded.

"Are you sure it's not some weird side effect of being in this place for so long? Or from the Puzzle getting switched around so much?" I blurted out.

"I'm not a slave to the Puzzle," Yami said sharply.

I nodded quickly. I hadn't meant to insult him.

Yami added, "At first I feared I was. Then I realized – no matter who wore the Puzzle, you were still the bravest, wisest person I know. I'm honored you call me your other self. But I'm not. I know what I want."

"But you guys are always arguing," I pointed out.

"Yes," Yami said with obvious satisfaction. "Kaiba will never stop struggling onwards, even when he's heading at full speed in the wrong direction. I've met his demons. And formidable as they are, he's stronger still. Kaiba will fight his way into his future and I want to be part of every moment of that conflict."

I'd always known Kaiba was special to Yami; that he mattered in a way that no one else, except for me, did. But I always thought it was part of that "nobody gets to mess with my rival but me" thing they had going on. Then I thought back to when we'd all met up… how many times Yami had grabbed Kaiba's arm, how Kaiba hadn't swatted Yami's hand or pushed it away, how closely they'd stood.

"What about Anzu?" I asked.

"She's my friend," Yami said.

I started to ask, "Does she know about you two?" Then I remembered how awkward she'd been when she'd talked about them. Of course she knew. She'd probably taken one look at them and picked up on all the clues I'd needed spelled out. And Yami had lived in my head for years. Maybe the separation had already happened and it had been another thing I hadn't noticed.

I took a deep breath. "Are you sure, Yami?" I said instead. I'm not sure who I was asking about – Kaiba or Anzu.

Yami didn't hesitate. "When I walked into Kaiba's soul room after Death-T… I saw a 10 year old boy… he was standing proudly, unafraid of what was coming. As I stepped towards him, picking my way across the wreckage of his soul, he dared me to kill him. Kaiba's been doing that ever since, facing down everything in his way, even me. And how I feel about Kaiba has never changed from that moment to this, I just hadn't learned to see it before. But I should have known from the moment I entered his soul room and saw him without masks or evasions or defenses that part of me would remain, willingly ensnared. He's so unyielding… so vulnerable… so very precious."

"I never knew you felt like this," I said. I'd just sort of assumed that he liked Anzu because I did – and it was hard to believe that anyone – especially someone as awesome as Yami, wouldn't want her.

"Neither did I," Yami answered. "But even though I hadn't been looking, I'd found someone who challenged me, who believed in my solidity before I was ready to do so myself, who didn't flinch from the darkness, the wildness in my nature, who was willing to reveal his own scars in turn. When I played Phoenix Reborn, when I grabbed for life, the flames felt like Kaiba and they carried me back to him."

I couldn't doubt Yami, not after hearing all that. I'd heard him speak passionately before, but always about an ideal like friendship or trust – never about a person.

I started to ask if Kaiba felt the same, but I didn't want to insult Yami again… and I couldn't imagine Kaiba letting down his guard enough to have sex with Yami if he didn't at least feel something.

"Kaiba doesn't strike me as someone who'd take to a relationship like a duck to water," I settled for saying.

"No," Yami answered with a smile. "But he's not willing to give up and neither am I. He keeps struggling to trust, to believe. At first he tried to hide all the emotions he was wrestling with. Then slowly, he started to let me see them, as if I was back in his soul room again, invited in where I had been an invader before. Do you have any idea what that means to me?"

Now that I thought about it, although Kaiba hadn't exactly been chatty, he'd been way politer to our friends than I'd expected. I'd wondered at the time what was up. And he kept on winding up standing next to Yami as though that was where he belonged. Maybe this would work out; they were both intense and stubborn and if Yami was right, they seemed to have decided that no one but each other would do.

It still wasn't my idea of a romance; it sounded way too exhausting. I guess it was one more proof of how different we were. I bit back a smile as I realized that if Yami was going to be with one person and me (hopefully) with another, we really did need our own bodies.

I was mumbling something supportive when we heard Kaiba holler, "Mokuba, wait!" somewhere below us.

Yami looked at me in alarm. "Kaiba was planning on telling Mokuba about us."

I nodded, relieved. I'd wanted a sign that Kaiba was serious about Yami. This one was written in neon.

Yami stared at the door like he was waiting for another yell. "Do you think Mokuba's angry with him?"

I shook my head. "No way. Can you imagine Mokuba disapproving of anything that made his brother happy?"

"Kaiba sounded upset," Yami said with a frown, still looking at the door.

I didn't bother pointing out Kaiba could probably manage to sound upset while eating ice cream.

"You're not going to be happy until you see for yourself that everything's okay, are you?" I asked. "They're probably in one of the rooms on the second or first floor. It's not that big a house. Why don't you go find him? You know you want to."

Yami smiled. "We may be separate now, but you still know my thoughts."

I hid my own smile until Yami left. I didn't tell him that a psychic connection wasn't needed to know what was on his mind.

* * *

**KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

I ran out of the house screaming my brother's name. I didn't reach him. Before I'd gone ten paces, four unbreakable glass walls rose up to surround me, cutting me off from Mokuba. I jumped up to grab the top of a wall and pull myself over it, but a glass ceiling morphed into place, knocking me back to the ground. I was trapped. I was going to lose Mokuba just when I thought I'd seen my way clear to winning.

I recognized the card the game had used to separate us: Connection Rejection. I'd designed it myself right after tag team duels became popular. It could block a team from forming. Pegasus had refused to include it in his new releases at first.

I cursed as I lost sight of Mokuba. I was in Pegasus' office again – or rather, his office was in this damned glass cage with me.

Pegasus was sitting behind his desk. I was leaning across it, looming over him. I heard him say, just as he had back then, "You don't know what you're asking for, Kaiba-boy."

"It's not a request. And I know exactly what I'm demanding," I countered.

"You've been itching to design cards, haven't you? I may have drawn each monster, but when I see them brought to holographic life, they're yours."

"I haven't violated the terms of our contract and you know it," I snarled.

"Of course I know. I was the one who added a rider that specifically said you could design and add cards provided they were mutually agreed upon," Pegasus said as he leaned forward.

"So what's the problem?" I said.

"You could have designed anything, Kaiba. You chose this."

He hadn't called my Kaiba-boy; his tone wasn't taunting. I suddenly realized how much he'd sounded like Sugoroku – and they'd both been telling me the same thing.

"Didn't you learn anything from Battle City?" Pegasus asked.

"You've been keeping tabs on me. I'm flattered." I sneered.

"Or from Death-T? Or Duelists Kingdom?" Pegasus went on relentlessly.

"Don't you dare bring up Duelists Kingdom." I hissed.

"I'm exactly the person who needs to. You know why I did it – why I kidnapped your brother, why I went after you," Pegasus said.

I nodded. I'd heard.

"Who has a better right to tell you that you're a fool than the only man in Domino who's been even stupider?" Pegasus said.

I was too outraged to yell. Pegasus took one look at my face and sighed. "Believe me, this humanitarian impulse surprises me as much as it does you. And you're right – there's no reason for you to trust anything I say. Ironic, isn't it? For once I want to help."

I'd snorted.

"Please think about why you're designing a card that denies everything you've started to explore." He smiled; the arch look returned to his face. "You have plenty of time to ponder your actions. Our contract requires that we both agree on the addition of new cards – and I don't."

I laughed. "I'd have been more likely to have believed in your sincerity if you hadn't immediately resorted to blackmail. I hope you're not expecting any holographic updates to your new cards any time soon. We both have to agree on that as well. And I don't."

I'd marched out of Pegasus' office, slamming the door behind me, never imagining that moment would lead to this one. Why couldn't I ever see where the path I was building led before it was too late?

Pegasus' office had disappeared the moment I'd whirled out of it. I was back in my virtual world.

Mokuba was facing Chimaera. It shook its lion's head and roared, thrashing its reptilian tail against the ground and beating the air with giant bat wings. I'd faced it after that first penalty game with Yami, when the combined monsters of our decks had attacked me. Chimaera had been one of Yami's little contributions to that party. It had helped to rip me apart, an illusion of death that had repeated itself every night. It looked much more threatening now... and Mokuba was so small. I banged on the glass walls of my prison until they shook but I couldn't topple them and nobody heard me but Mokuba. He grinned and flashed a thumbs up sign before turning back to the monster facing him. I dropped my hands to my sides. The last thing I wanted to do was distract him.

I was helpless. I needed to sacrifice both a Spell and a Trap card that could cancel monster effects to get rid of Connection Rejection, and I didn't have either. I'd deliberately set the bar high – figuring that no one would bother to cross it… the same way that Yugi and his merry little band kept saying (correctly) that I didn't know shit about friendship – and then melted away after each adventure.

Maybe this was what I deserved for not learning quickly enough, for designing Death-T in the first place, for leaving my brother to die there. This time I was the one pounding helplessly on the glass walls of my prison waiting for a nightmare.

Then, Mokuba summoned Swarm of Scarabs. The mass of brown beetles lived up to their name, crawling over Chimaera, picking the flesh from his bones before devouring the skeleton too. They scuttled back in front of Mokuba and went to sleep. He'd played the Spell Card, Effect Rejuvenation as well. Now Mokuba could use Storm of Scarabs over and over with new each turn. I smiled. It was a sophisticated move.

But the game wasn't done. Ancient Gear Beast took care of Swarm of Scarabs, negating its effect. Mokuba kept battling back until he was down to his last card, and facing Orgoth the Relentless. The warrior swept out his broadsword and raised it two-handed. His face was invisible behind his helm.

I was going to lose Mokuba. It was my fault. Every time I'd shoved him out of my way, every time I'd hurt him flashed through my mind. And each memory led to that awful, final moment when I'd watched Mokuba through the monitor at Death-T, his eyes wide, his voice cracking as he'd pled for his life. I saw myself, cold and pitiless, as if I'd been turned to stone, my own voice as empty and hollow as the soul Yami had shattered. I'd told Mokuba that in the world of gaming there were no brothers and I'd triggered the death simulation I expected to kill him.

My prison was as soundproof as the death simulation chamber. I couldn't even call Yami to get his ass out here and save my brother again. I would have done it without hesitation, without regret, even if it meant admitting my failure, admitting I was the weaker man – because nothing, not my guilt and certainly not my pride, mattered more than Mokuba.

There was nothing I could do but watch. I stared at Orgoth the Relentless and wondered why a Blue Eyes White Dragon hadn't swooped in to attack, instead. I froze as I realized what I'd said: _a Blue Eyes White Dragon hadn't swooped in to attack_.

But it should have.

Now I was thinking again, trying to use the only weapon I had left – my mind – to figure this out. None of the monsters that had attacked Mokuba were mine. I knew beyond certainty if I'd been out there, if the challenge had been a shared one, every monster in my deck would have been on that field targeting Mokuba. And even if I'd managed to beat them all back, I still would have been guilty they'd attacked in the first place, because that was the weight I'd carried for so long it was just another fact of life.

But I was stuck in here. Mokuba was the only one facing – and creating – this challenge, not me. There was only one glorious, inescapable conclusion: my brother believed in me so completely, that the game couldn't send my monsters to kill him.

I leaned against the glass, dizzy with relief. Mokuba wasn't afraid of me. He'd told me that over and over. I'd never believed him. My own guilt had blinded me; my bitterness had kept me bound as effectively as this cage. Now the proof was in front of me. Despite Death-T, Mokuba trusted me right down to his core.

And that suddenly, I knew this would work out. I knew the card Mokuba was going to play next, feeling, for once, in sync with the game I'd designed, the game Gozaburo had corrupted. And for the first time I dared to hope Gozaburo hadn't ruined either of us past redemption.

I'd created two cards. The second had been designed for Mokuba. He'd been so excited when I told him I'd created a Duel Monsters card; then his face had fallen when he'd actually seen it.

"Why'd you design such a mean card, Nisama?" he'd asked.

"I hate the way tag team duels have gotten so popular. They're stupid. I'm sick of being told how great trust and friendship are – as if they're the only answer. How far would we have gotten relying on other people to help us out?" I'd snapped at him.

"But Yugi and his friends…" Mokuba started to say.

I didn't want to hear it. "Yes. They helped. But that doesn't mean I have to feel all the nauseating emotions they think I should or become some naïve sap like everything we went through to get where we are doesn't count." I shuddered. "It's not happening. I don't care what those losers say – no one should be forced into being part of a team."

"But we're a team," Mokuba had said anxiously.

"Of course we are. And I'll design a card just for us," I'd reassured him. And I had.

I'd taken both cards to Pegasus. He'd agreed to add Connection Rejection as long as my second card, Shared Dragons, was included in the next release as well.

Mokuba turned to grin at me again. I nodded and tapped two fingers against my forehead in a salute. Mokuba raised Shared Dragons to the sky with a flourish that made him look a foot taller. Now he could borrow any dragon in my deck, and we both knew which one it would be.

My Blue Eyes White Dragon took to the field. Her Neutron Blast disintegrated Orgoth the Relentless in a blinding flash of light. The walls of my prison melted away. I was free.

I ran over and dropped to my knees in front of Mokuba, like one of those ancient Egyptians Yami kept going on about praying at an altar. I held Mokuba at arms' length for a moment, unable to believe he was alive until I'd memorized his face, until I'd called up and rescanned the ending of the duel as though watching it on instant replay.

Mokuba crumpled in my arms as if we were back in the orphanage, as if he hadn't just won a decisive victory all on his own.

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to scare you! I swear I didn't," Mokuba sobbed.

"Don't ever do that again!" I ordered.

"I won't if you won't," he said, all childishness gone as if it had never existed, even though tears were still running down his cheeks. If granite or steel had been given a voice, it would have sounded like Mokuba.

I didn't let go of him – I couldn't – but I loosened my grip enough to get a good look at him. Lavender-gray eyes were never meant to be as hard as blue, but Mokuba managed it. I was reminded he had led a gang in elementary school back in that past we never talked about.

"Sugoroku told us what you did, how you made the game easier for us but harder for you. I never want you doing anything like that again," he ordered.

"Taking care of you is my job. I'm the older brother," I reminded him.

"That's not good enough, Nisama! I'm just as much your brother as you are mine. I don't want to lose you," he said, his voice getting younger with each sentence. "The whole time we were apart I kept worrying if each day would be the one where you'd finally manage to kill yourself."

"I don't take foolish risks, Mokuba," I said.

"I don't want you taking any risks!" he yelled.

I shook my head, my thoughts jumping back to the past. I remembered walking back to the orphanage with Mokuba. He'd run away. Somewhere in his three year old brain he'd decided if he went back to our old playground everything would be okay again. I'd been eight. I'd known better. I'd knelt down, looked him in the eye and promised to be his father. I'd spent weeks in this game confronting my failures, fighting my own weakness. This was the one thing I'd done unarguably, unalterably right. Now Mokuba wanted another promise, but he wasn't three, I wasn't eight – and I couldn't.

"I'm not built like that Mokuba, and you know it."

"No, you're going to go on keep doing all these crazy things for me… well most of the times it's for me," he added with incurable honesty.

"And sometimes it's just for the hell of it," I agreed with a smile.

"I'm serious, Nisama!" He no longer looked like a gang leader, but he wasn't the toddler who'd grabbed for my hand at every street crossing, either.

"I promised to see that you were happy," I reminded him.

"No. You said that _we'd_ be happy and you're part of that, too." Mokuba paused, then looked me right in the eye, just like I'd taught him and said, "I'm scared you're going to die and it's going to be my fault. Just like with mom..."

"Don't ever say that!" I yelled. I'd never meant to do this to him, to make him worry, to make him feel like he was to blame for his own existence. I'd spent my life trying to protect him, and once again, I'd failed, just like I'd never been able to get our father to look at Mokuba and see only him and not our mom. But once again, my own guilt wasn't important. Mokuba needed me.

"Have I ever lied to you?" I asked, close to panicking all over again even though there were no monsters left.

Mokuba shook his head.

"I'm not lying now. I read the autopsy reports. It was one of the first things I ever hacked into. She had heart problems that nobody detected. All this time… have you been blaming yourself?"

"No."

I stared at him but he kept his face down.

"Mokuba," I growled.

"Maybe. Kind of. If she hadn't been pregnant… "

"It would have happened the next week or the one after. If you want to blame anyone, blame our father. He should have taken better care of his family, not avoided you when things went wrong. I tried to be better than him, Mokuba. I swear I did. I tried to make sure you knew how much you were wanted."

"You did. I don't remember our father. I've thought about it a lot. I was three when he died. I should remember something… his face, the feel of his arms holding me, the sound of his voice reading a bedtime story. But there's nothing. All I remember is you. I need you, Nisama."

How many times had Gozaburo told me that I was weak, that my dependence on my brother made me a loser – and that the price for losing was death? How many times had I believed it?

"I need you too, Mokuba. I always have," I answered.

Mokuba smiled. "I didn't want to scare you. But I trust you and I couldn't think of another way to make you believe it."

"I know," I said as I got up. I couldn't get the look on Mokuba's face when he'd talked about our parents out of my mind. "You're everything to me, Mokuba. Our dad was an asshole. Never forget either point," I ordered.

"I love you too, Nisama," Mokuba said, hugging me.

I put my arm on his shoulder. We walked back to the house. As we got there, the door opened. Yami was standing in the doorway, glaring at me.

"I couldn't find you. I took my eyes off you just long enough to talk to Yugi! I should have known you'd take the first chance you got to run right into danger. What part of safety is so damn hard for you to understand?" Yami yelled.

I expected Mokuba to agree with Yami, since he'd just finished screaming the same thing. But Mokuba walked up to Yami and stuck his chin out. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and stretched to his full, if limited, height. "Don't yell at Nisama. This was between me and him. I left the house first."

"Why would you do that, Mokuba? Your brother's been going crazy the whole time you've been apart, worrying about you," Yami said more quietly.

"If Nisama wants to tell you, he will. Up 'til then it's none of your business."

"Mokuba?" I asked, nodding towards Yami. It suddenly occurred to me that Mokuba had never really told me what he thought about me and Yami being together. I tried to stay calm, but my hands clenched themselves at my side.

"He's the first person you've ever said you wanted, except for me. Haven't I been trying to tell you that I want you to be happy?" Mokuba smiled at me, then turned to face Yami. His eyes were lavender-tinged steel again. He said, "When we threw the Puzzle to Nisama, I expected you to take care of him. From where I'm standing you did one hell of a lousy job."

"Mokuba!" I said sharply. He glared at me. I frowned, but kept silent. Mokuba had just won a duel and mouthing off was a winner's right. He'd apparently decided to celebrate his victory by laying down the law to everyone in the immediate vicinity. He was doing a pretty thorough job of it too. I had a hard time repressing a proud grin, an impulse that vanished at his next words.

"Look at him!" Mokuba continued, waving his hand toward me as if I hadn't spoken. "He hasn't slept in weeks and even though the game automatically keeps us fed – he still manages to look like he hasn't eaten, either. And I'm betting you've used up almost all of the healing potions in your inventory."

"It was hardly an easy charge. It's not like your brother helped. I'm sure I'll master the art of looking after him with practice," Yami said. It took me a minute to grasp he wasn't joking.

"You two are way out of line! I can take care of myself," I growled. It was unnerving having them both talk about me like I wasn't there.

"Then start!" Mokuba shot back just as quickly. He turned back to Yami. "You sound like you're planning on hanging around."

"That's up to your brother to decide," Yami said.

"I hated you for a long time," Mokuba said. "For that first penalty game, for Death-T… you didn't have to sit there and watch what it did to Nisama. I did. And no matter how many times you helped out, it never made up for it. The thing is… I never realized how mad I'd been at you, until I came here and realized I wasn't any more. That's all I wanted to say."

Mokuba hugged me, then pushed past us, entered the safe house and went up the stairs, presumably to find a bedroom. He yelled, "Goodnight!" over his shoulder. He didn't seem to expect me to follow.

I entered the safe house and shut the front door. I leaned against it for a moment, slightly stunned.

"Why did Mokuba doubt I wanted to stay with you?" Yami asked.

I shrugged. "A lot has changed."

"A lot has stayed the same," Yami countered, grabbing the waistband of my pants and pulling me towards him.

"You've met up with Yugi again," I pointed out.

"And the first thing I did was tell him about you." Yami shoved me against the hallway wall and pushed his leg between mine, trapping me. "Yugi deserved to hear such important news from me before I did this," he said, pulling my head down to his level and pressing his lips to mine.

It felt like we'd been apart for days instead of hours. I was hungry for him all over again.

"Why aren't you mad?" I asked when Yami lifted his mouth from mine.

"I will be," Yami promised. "I have time. It's unimaginable. We're going to win. I can feel it. We're going home. Together. And then I'll have all the time in the world to get absolutely furious over what a reckless asshole you can be… how you never, ever seem to remember for more than five seconds that you have people who care what happens to you." He pulled me closer and sucked on my neck at the place where it rose out of my shoulders, throwing a little teeth into the effort.

My gasp was only partly from the sudden, stinging shock of being bitten.

"Right now," Yami murmured against my neck, "I just want to hold you…"

"Biting me also seems to be on your agenda," I pointed out.

"That, too. But most of all I want to make love to you."

He unbuttoned my shirt, ripping a few of them in his haste, then went to work on my body, nipping and sucking his way down my torso, leaving random welts to record his path. Yami liked marking me up.

I moaned aloud as he reached for the waistband of my trousers. Yami had gotten adept at unfastening them one-handed, while his other one played with my nipples, teasing one and then the other. His mouth found my neck again. I was shivering uncontrollably from the meeting of cool air and overheated flesh.

I hated the way he made me lose control.

I loved it.

Every time it happened, I wasn't a weapons designer, I wasn't a businessman, I wasn't even Mokuba's guardian. I was a horny teenager, stripping Yami's clothes as fast as I could while hoping the wall was strong enough to brace myself against.

That's when it hit me: we were in the fucking hallway.

The number of people I wanted to catch me half naked in a hallway, moaning like a bitch in heat, could be counted on the fingers of a closed fist – but even if the list had stretched into the millions, Mokuba's name wouldn't be on it.

"We're not alone in this safe house, remember?" I hissed, grabbing for my pants. "What are you trying to do, put on a show? Mokuba or Yugi could wander downstairs at any moment!"

I'd seen Yami flushed with anger – or more recently, desire, before. This was the first time I'd seen him go bright pink with embarrassment. I liked it.

"Hot pink looks good on you," I told him, smirking.

"Kaiba…" Yami growled. I frowned at the use of my family name, but Yami ignored me and continued, "Must you pick this moment to be insufferable?"

He whirled around, staring at the closed doors, trying to figure out which one to fall into.

I shook my head. "Don't bother with the main floor. Anything this accessible will be worthless."

He gave me that disturbingly proud smile, the one I didn't have to win anything to get from him.

"You are so absolutely, relentlessly yourself," he said.

I didn't see who else I could be, but Yami had pressed in close enough for a kiss, and I was too breathless to argue.

"Yugi headed straight for the attic," Yami said.

Mokuba had probably done the same.

"That leaves the basement," I said.

"Does it have a bed?" Yami asked with a grin.

"Too many," I answered as I went down the stairs.

It didn't take long to reach the basement. The linoleum covering each step was worn from years of use; the dirt was too ingrained to be removed even with the kind of industrial disinfectant that came in ten gallon drums. One door at the foot of the stairs led to the boiler room and storage areas. I opened the other.

It was a storage area as well; one for warehousing unwanted items. The beds were small, identical, and lined in ordered rows. Each was neatly made with the same plain white sheets; each had a blue blanket folded at the foot.

"I was expecting a dungeon," Yami said as he came up to me. He looked from the room to my face and added, "Or did we find one?"

I wasn't sure how to answer. I thought again of Sugoroku saying that I could have designed anything. I could have created an oasis. Instead I'd built a decaying mansion straight out of a horror movie and put the orphanage dormitory at its foundation.

"We don't have to stay," Yami said.

"I don't run," I replied. I walked to the door and swung it closed, enjoying the sound as it slammed shut with a crash that would have brought a staff member running in to scold me, back when Mokuba and I had lived here.

I turned to face Yami. That uncomfortably unfamiliar proud smile was back on his face.

* * *

.

**_Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter and for going through pages of manga duels helping me figure out if Kaiba had ever faced Chimaera._ **

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I'm sorry for the delay. Between the holidays and getting sick (I'm fine now) getting this posted took longer than I intended. Also, although the end is in sight, getting there is taking more time for writing, editing and double-checking than I expected.

It's funny, but I think if Yugi were younger and brasher, he'd probably like to say the same kind of things to Kaiba that Mokuba said to Yami (lol), or at the very least, I think the same question would be going through their minds: will this make Nisama/Yami happy?

But although Yugi and Mokuba are obviously going to be concerned, one thing I was surprised to realize was that I didn't think it would be the only concern. As big a change as Yami being in a relationship is – to Yugi the fact that he now has his own body, and all the implications for what that means to them, is an even bigger one. As for Mokuba and Kaiba, one thing that struck me in Kaiba and Yami's duel at Alcatraz was that when Kaiba talks about how much he hates his past, Mokuba is shocked and says that he had no idea his brother felt so strongly. I think there are so many things they never talk about, that once they were together, everything started tumbling out.

 **Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my Live Journal account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated.

_I'd really like to know so far into the story what you think. Comments are always appreciated._


	45. Gates of the Underworld

**CHAPTER 45:  GATES OF THE UNDERWORLD**

_Given Kaiba’s fondness for supernatural happenings, it’s easy to guess what he would make of the Ghost of Christmas Past.  He’d probably throw in a few remarks about 19 th century food handling procedures, and vote for sanitation problems or food-borne toxins.  But whatever the source, there’s no denying this phantom packed quite a punch, reminding the most famous Victorian miser of the pain of abandonment and joys of friendship.  But what if the scales had weighed a little less heavily on the friendship side of the balance?  What if the message or the memories had been darker?  Would it then be wiser to lay the past to rest, or at the very least, take its message a little less completely to heart?_

**YAMI’S NARRATIVE**

Kaiba slammed the door shut.  For once, his defiant smile wasn’t aimed at me, but at the room itself.  I made my way to his side, crossing the length of the orphanage dormitory, then gasped as the room filled with children standing in rows, each next to a neatly made bed.  I had to remind myself that these boys were the ghosts, not me. 

Kaiba crossed his arms in front of his chest and glared at the room and its occupants.  “What’s going on here?  This is supposed to be a safe house!”

“Maybe this isn’t a challenge,” I said.

“What is it then?” Kaiba asked.

“An opportunity,” I answered.

“To do what?” Kaiba said.

I sighed.  “I don’t know.”

I looked for my own particular little phantom.  He wasn’t hard to find.  One of the beds near the door had two boys next to it.  I smiled as I saw a miniature Seto, standing just as straight as the man at my side and glaring just as fiercely.  A five year old Mokuba was trying – and failing – to copy his older brother’s posture and expression.

As I glanced around the room I saw another exception to the one child per bed rule.  A couple of the older boys were pulling the sheets off one of the beds in the back.  They didn’t stop even when a middle aged woman entered.  She was holding a clipboard like a shield between her and the children.  Her eyes scanned the room.  I wasn’t sure how she avoided seeing the boys in the back messing up one of the beds when everyone else was standing at attention, but she managed. 

“Life’s easier if she doesn’t notice – then she doesn’t have to step in,” Kaiba said.

“That’s cowardly.”

Kaiba shrugged.  He didn’t turn to look at me.

She walked down the rows making a check on her clipboard at each bed and bestowing a perfunctory smile that never seemed to reach its target on each boy.  Seto earned a frown instead.

“You know the rules, Seto,” she said, checking Mokuba’s bed off her list.  “Go stand by your own bed, not Mokuba’s.” 

“She called you Seto?” I asked.  Calling them by their given names should have indicated affection – but there was no warmth in her voice and she’d moved on to the next bed without turning to see if he’d obeyed – or even if he’d been listening.

“It was policy.  They figured we might as well forget out family names on the off-chance anyone wanted to adopt us.”  Kaiba laughed.  “The big myth: that families stick together.  And every idiot in this place – most of whom had been dumped there by their remaining relatives – bought into it.  Not that I cared; I’d rather be nameless than share the name of the bastards who’d abandoned us.”

“You and Mokuba didn’t sleep next to each other?” 

“Not officially.  Not that I let that stop us.  They assigned our beds according to age.  It’s not like any of them were really ours,” Seto said, his voice as flat and impersonal as the woman making her way through the dormitory rows.  “When I turned 13, I would have been sent to the teenage room away from Mokuba. I couldn’t let that happen.”

The woman had finally reached the unmade bed that I was sure was Seto’s.  It was the only one unattended now that the boys had left it.  The larger of the pair was standing by the next bed.  Both boys were smirking in anticipation as she studied it.

“You should pay more attention to your own responsibilities instead of other people’s.  Your bed is a mess, Seto.  Stay here and clean it up while the rest of the room goes to breakfast.”

I could have understood if she’d been angry at Seto’s defiance or even if she was holding a grudge at the angry, arrogant and uncooperative child I was sure he’d been.  But her voice contained only indifference.

“It’s not fair! That wasn’t your fault and she knows it!” Mokuba said, tugging on his brother’s hand.  I wondered how many times he’d said that over the years.

“Life isn’t fair,” Seto told him.  “Don’t worry, Mokuba, I’m about to even the score.”

“What’s under your pillow, Daisuke?” the woman asked as she reached the next bed.  She pushed the pillow aside, revealing a bag of candy.  “You’ll be missing breakfast too.  You and Seto can both think about your misbehavior.”

“Hey!  That’s my…” Daisuke’s partner in crime started to say.

“Do you want to miss breakfast too?” the woman asked.

“No ma’am,” the boy mumbled, but the woman had already moved on.

She finished the row, lined the children up– except for Seto and Daisuke – and got ready to lead them out of the room.

The other boy hissed, “No one knew I had that candy except you.  I’ll get you later.”  He shoved Daisuke and fell into place.

“Go ahead with the others,” Seto told Mokuba.  “Enjoy your breakfast.  They say it’s the most important meal of the day.”  He smiled when Mokuba giggled.

“I wish you were coming with me,” Mokuba said.

“It’s okay.  I’m not hungry.”  Seto cracked one set of knuckles, then the other.  “I’m going to enjoy myself too – and I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that bully bothering you anymore.”

Mokuba gave his brother a quick, nervous nod.  As he caught up with the others, everyone vanished.  We were alone in an empty orphanage dormitory again.  I was glad.  I didn’t need a reminder of how cruel and violent – even at that age – Kaiba could be.

“How did you set him up?” I asked Kaiba.

“Piece of cake. Daisuke really did take Makoto’s hoard.  His mistake was in hiding it somewhere I could find it.”  Kaiba faced me defiantly.  “If he hadn’t, I would have framed him anyway.  Bullies like him are weaker alone.  And I needed an uninterrupted half hour with him.”

“What happened?”

“What do you think?  I was protecting Mokuba.”

I shook my head, trying to understand this place that had helped to shape Kaiba.

“Are you going to pretend that everyone turned a blind eye to your beating that kid up?” I asked.

“I don’t need to pretend.  Gozaburo taught me that if you’re rich enough no one will ask any questions.  But this place taught me that if you’re powerless, you don’t need to bother buying silence, because nobody cares.  They were both useful lessons and I learned them well.”

His voice was hollow – no, worse, it was filled and over-flowing with emptiness.  Mokuba had told us once that his brother had built Kaiba Land so that unwanted kids would have a place where they could go and feel special.  All of us – even me – had assumed it was an exaggeration.  It had seemed far too sentimental an explanation.  Now I believed.

I knew better than to offer sympathy, though.  Kaiba was still in his usual dueling stance, standing ramrod straight, leaning slightly backwards, his coat flaring slightly out as though obeying some inaudible command.  But something in his tightly crossed arms lent him an air of vulnerability despite his best efforts.

I drew in a breath.  “If we’re staying, we better move some of these beds together,” I said, pushing one of them next to its partner, breaking the painful order of the room. 

Kaiba laughed his old slightly maniacal laugh and joined me, gleefully shoving one bed after another out of place, flipping a couple of them over in his eagerness to wreck the neatly aligned rows.  He finally settled for smashing them into each other while I hurriedly tried to shift each one into place to form an enormous bed.  I looked at the result and smiled.  Somehow, between us, we’d managed to create an island in the middle of the room.

Kaiba sat down heavily at the edge closest to him.  I crawled around until I was kneeling behind him.  Carefully, as though I was treating one of his injuries again, I stripped off his jacket and shirt, and started kneading his shoulders, trying to soften them from stone to flesh.

“What are you doing?” he asked harshly. “If you’re horny just say so.  I have no objections to picking up where we left off before we came to this boring room.”

My fingers tightened on his shoulders, dug deep enough to find bone.  After all this time, Kaiba still refused to see that I cared about him, that I saw him as more than a convenient body… he refused to believe he was my lover.  I leaned my forehead against the back of his neck, pleased as the pressure caused him to bow forwards.  I tried to tell myself he would have deserved it if I’d followed him up on his offer, if I’d pushed him into the bed and taken him as he so clearly expected – not just from life – but from me.  But the days when I could stand to see Kaiba in pain were long gone.

I lifted my head and said, “You’ve got to learn to stop lashing out like that.  Or are you that desperate for me to prove that I care?”

His head shot up like I knew it would, pushing off the pressure I’d put on his neck.

“Don’t insult me,” he hissed.

“I don’t think I can – not worse than you insult yourself every time you assume I couldn’t possibly love you.”  I stopped short.  Kaiba had taunted me with wanting to go back to the moment when he’d been half naked and moaning in my arms.  Had there been a plea there as well?  Did he want to rewind the clock to the second before we’d walked into this room and he’d been reminded of all the corrosive lessons he’d learned here?  Maybe he was hungry for the touch of my hands on his body, for the sound of my groans echoing in his ears… but he just couldn’t ask for the affection I was eager to offer along with it.

Sure I was on the right track, my fingers resumed their movements on his shoulders.  “Relax…” I started and then paused again, unsure what name to call him.  We’d come too far for me to say “Kaiba” casually, not when he was shirtless.  But right now, the name “Seto” seemed tainted with the indifference of this place.  “Relax love, just concentrate on how this feels, how much I care.  That’s all I want.  I can’t change the past. Neither of us can.  But I trust you.  You’re far too strong to stay trapped here.”

“You sound like Mokuba.  He said he wished he could erase what happened, too.”

“I’m more selfish than that.  Fighting your way through it all is what made you into the man you are… the man I love.”

“I didn’t want you see this place,” Kaiba admitted as the tension finally started to leech out of his shoulders.

“Why?” I asked. 

“Because this is what true helplessness is… being so unimportant that the mediocrities hired to take minimal care of you can safely ignore you.”  He slammed his fist into the bed.  “I had to prove them wrong.  We mattered.  We might have been tossed in this place, but Mokuba and I weren’t garbage… no, worse; you notice the trash long enough to pick it up.  Even Gozaburo was better than here.”

He turned slightly so he could gauge my reaction from the corner of his eye.  His face had a half-defiant, half-ashamed look as he said Gozaburo’s name.

“I understand,” I said, although I didn’t… not really.  This place had hurt him in ways I hadn’t expected.  It had made him feel so defenseless and desperate that selling himself to Gozaburo had become inevitable.  This place was where – for all of his bravado and arrogance – Kaiba had learned to think of himself as expendable, to value his life only so far as it served his goals… and his welfare not at all.

I gave his shoulders a final caress then moved until I was straddling him, sitting face to face in his lap.  Gently I pushed him back onto the bed we’d created, now that I was sure he was ready to fall.  I caught my breath as I saw him, for the first time, lying across a bed, his cinnamon hair and cobalt eyes vivid against the paleness of his skin and the stark whiteness of the sheets.  I leaned down and brushed my lips against his, then moved to rain feather light kisses along his neck and the shoulders I’d just finished massaging.

“You’re so predictable, Yami.  You give me a whole speech about strength then act like if you kiss me like you mean it, I’ll fall apart.  You should know me better.”

“I do.  I shattered your soul but I couldn’t break it.  Maybe that’s why I’m so cautious about risking something so precious ever again.”

Suddenly, abruptly, I felt myself rolling over until Kaiba was on top, looking down and smirking.

“You’re a slow learner.  One question: what have I ever said or done that made you think I wanted to be treated like I was made of glass?” he asked.

I laughed.  “Absolutely nothing.”  I reached up and crushed him to me, loving the feel of the hard planes of his back against my hands.

Kaiba’s lips came down on mine, bruisingly hard.  I responded as eagerly.  His touch gentled, his mouth moved softly over mine, his fingers traced my face, my ears as though trying to memorize me by touch alone.

“Now who’s acting like he’s holding glass?” I teased.

Kaiba flushed.  I loved being the one person that could make Kaiba’s self-possession desert him.

“You look adorable right now,” I added, unsurprised when Kaiba’s mouth came down on my own even harder than before, as much a gag as a kiss. Once again his touch gentled as if he was caught between extremes.

“Maybe I feel the same about you – that the one person who can make me lose control is the one person I want to treasure,” he said.

He took my lips again, finally finding his balance, finally ready to explore the body he was coming to know.  He skipped across it to the most sensitive spots, taking my ear between his teeth, dipping his tongue in and out of its well.  Before I was done gasping he had moved to my nipples.  He went almost lazily down my torso, traced the curve of my hip with his tongue before trailing the length of my thighs to the crease at the back of my knee.  He started moving upwards, then stopped and stared at me, blue eyes dark and utterly serious.

“Say my name.  I want to hear it from you.”

“Seto,” I gasped as he continued his journey up my legs, stopping when he reached my groin, pleasuring me with a businesslike intensity that was peculiarly his own. 

I felt alive.  But exciting as this was to have his mouth on me, to have his tongue teasing me until I could barely remember his name, much less moan it, I needed more.  I pushed at his shoulder, getting him to look up.

“I want you,” I said.  “I want all of you, Seto.”

“I know,” he answered, his voice choked and husky.

I was made for the moment when Kaiba shed his defenses with his clothes, when we both stripped off all our familiar roles and found each other.  Kaiba moved swiftly in response.  He kissed me one more time, before covering my body with his own.  I looked at him through half-closed eyes.  I would never get tired of the sight of Kaiba, poised over me in that instant before completion, dazed and intense all at once, a combination of coiled muscle and lightning reflexes ready to spring into action… and I was where I belonged: at the center of his storm.

I had started this trying to prove to Kaiba how desperately I cared, trying clumsily to give him my reassurance.  Now I simply hungered for Kaiba… and the only thing I wanted to give was myself.  Kaiba – in his fervor, his passion, his single-minded ferocity – was familiar, was my old rival.  But each time we came together was blessedly new.  He was straining above me now, eyes clouded, the hair that hung lankly in front of his face not quite shielding them from my sight.  He was purposeful in this as in all things, striving for perfection even in making love, even when making me scream, even as he was eagerly taking everything I offered.

I wanted to breathe him in, to draw him inside that deeply and hold him for my own.  I gasped out his name, my voice rising as I repeated it over and over.  He grabbed my hips tightly enough to leave bruises as I rose to meet him, to spur him on.  Each repeated cry drove him further and harder, until I was screaming his name, until his movements lost their fluidity, became rough with uncontrolled power… until he finally yelled my name with a single choked-off cry. 

We clung to each other, sated and shaken, muscles quivering with the aftershock.  We were both breathing heavily; I was only half aware that I was still mumbling his name.  Our trembling gradually quieted to the occasional shiver as Kaiba fell on top of me, as he rolled us over until I was lying across him, covering more of him that the thin blue orphanage blanket he pulled over us.

As I rested my head on Kaiba’s chest I realized something that froze me in place: I’d been ready to give up my life, to abandon Kaiba after all my promises, if Yugi had demanded it.  Kaiba raised his hand and lazily stroked my back.  I felt like a fraud.

“Stop it!” I said.

His hand stilled instantly.  “What’s wrong, Yami?”

“Earlier… before… when I told Yugi about us.  I thought he was upset that I had my own body, that I wasn’t a part of him anymore.”

“That doesn’t sound like Yugi,” Kaiba observed.  I raised my head and looked at him.  He was frowning thoughtfully.

“I know.  I misread everything – and then I offered to give up my independence if that was what he needed.  I would have left you after everything we shared, after everything I swore to do.  I’m sorry.  I don’t know why I did it.”

“I do.”  Kaiba’s voice wasn’t bitter or accusatory, although I deserved both.  “You’re his protector.  It was your first job.”  He shook his head.  “No.  It’s more than that.  It’s who you were – and it’s hard to give that up, especially if you have no idea if anything will replace it.”

“I know Yugi’s strong.  He doesn’t need me that way.”

“But that doesn’t matter, does it?” Kaiba asked.

“How come you don’t hate me for being a hypocrite?  For pushing you to see how valuable your life is, how precious you are – and then failing the same test myself?”

“Nothing you told me was wrong, Yami.  And maybe I like seeing you make the same mistakes.  You just saw how far Mokuba had to go to get me to listen… to trust him really.”

Relieved as I was by his understanding, it was hard to swallow it down.  For there was a darker side to Kaiba’s acceptance.  I’d promised to stay by his side then betrayed that vow within an hour of being reunited with Yugi – and Kaiba was so used to coming in second he hadn’t even noticed.  Was this why he needed to win so fiercely and at all costs? 

If I was lucky, one day Kaiba would remember this moment and finally understand why I was apologizing.  I knew better than expect it to happen any time soon, but I lived in hope.

“Maybe in spite of everything I needed Yugi’s permission to be my own person, to love you the way you deserve to be loved.”  I leaned in and kissed Kaiba, possessing his mouth as thoroughly as he’d taken mine earlier.  I raised my head and said, “Now that I’m free – I know the bindings I want.”

“That sounds like a promise.” His eyes were fixed on mine with the intensity he’d just shown while we were making love.

“Yes.  I want to be the one making promises to you,” I answered.

“Once that would have pissed me off.  I figured that no one makes promises except to a child.”

“And now?” I asked.

It always amazed me how gentle Kaiba’s smile could be.  “It’s nice.  I could get used to hearing promises from you.  It makes me want to win.”

* * *

**RYOU BAKURA’S NARRATIVE**

Getting into the Kaiba Corporation computer lab was as easy as I’d hoped it would be.  The security guards recognized me as one of Yugi’s friends.  They remembered me from Battle City.  One of them even asked how I was.  I went down to the lab.  I was pretty sure I’d be able to talk Honda into letting me use his avatar.  Finding Jounouchi there as well was an extra complication.

“Are you sure?” Honda asked, when I’d finished explaining that I needed to see the Spirit of the Ring.

“Yes,” I said, pleased at how firm my voice sounded.

“Just tell us why you want to see that psycho,” Jounouchi said.

The least I could do was answer his question honestly.  “I don’t know,” I said.  It didn’t sound convincing, even to me.  My thoughts seemed to tangle in my head as I tried to explain.  “I’ve spent my life disappearing, mostly behind him.”

“So you want to confront him?  What good do you think telling him off is going to do?” Jounouchi said.

“It’s not about blaming him.  I don’t.  It’s just… he doesn’t need to keep doing this – keep trying to take revenge on all the wrong people for something he can’t change.  Someone should at least try to tell him that before it’s too late.”

Jounouchi shook his fists in the air and stomped in a circle. “You don’t owe him anything!”

“It’s not about that.  It’s just…” my voice trailed off.  How could I convince them of something I didn’t quite understand myself – and the last thing I was used to doing was trusting my instincts.  There was no way they were going to agree.

“Okay, I’m in,” Honda said.

“What?” Jounouchi and I yelped at the same time.  It’s hard to say which one of us was more startled.

“Look… I can’t imagine what it must have been like for Yugi… having someone inside his head… and that was Yami, and he’s the coolest guy I know… but you…” Honda sounded even more inarticulate than me.  I was grateful to him for that.  He pulled himself together, ran his hand through his hair, messing up the ship’s prow look he favored.  He ignored Jounouchi’s snicker and said, “This isn’t our call.  I don’t know why this is important to you, but you’re our friend.  Borrow my avatar.  We’ll be waiting right here when you’re done.”

“And we can go out for burgers afterwards!” Jounouchi added, like that was what everyone did after talking to destructive spirits.

I nodded, sat down in front of the console and put the helmet on.

I looked around, startled.  Everyone had told me that Kaiba’s virtual world was amazing – and even like this, unable to move unless someone summoned me, it was clear they’d undersold it.  I was looking at freshly tilled fields.  I could smell the mingled scents of a farm, apple trees, herbs, the hint of manure.  I could feel the breeze brushing against my skin.  NPCs were working the farm in the background.  They looked like they were joking and calling to each other, but there was no sound.  I remembered someone telling me that Kaiba hadn’t gotten around to writing dialog.  It was the only thing left unfinished.

I didn’t have long to wait.  The Spirit of the Ring hadn’t lost his touch.  He’d summoned me before I even realized he was there.

“You’re not that buffoon.  You’re my former landlord,” he said.

I winced.  He’d always said that mockingly; it had been the prelude to his taking control.  If he was in a particularly cruel mood he’d leave me conscious while he stabbed himself or did something else to demonstrate how completely he owned my body.  I swallowed, remembering him masturbating to thoughts of murder and revenge.  I opened my eyes at the sound of his laughter.

“I’m no longer in your body, but I know what you’re remembering,” he hissed.  “I still own you, landlord.”

“Sometimes it feels like you left an empty apartment behind,” I admitted, wondering if coming here, even as an avatar, had been such a good idea.  But I thought of my father, how when I tried to call up his face all I could see was the back of his head as he went off to the airport.  I wasn’t going to spend my whole life walking away. 

“How did you find me so quickly?” I asked.

“The scent of fear.  It draws me.  Part of me wishes I was still outside this game, just so I could dominate you all over again.  It was always so easy… slipping into you… hardly worth the effort.  Is that why you’re here?”

“I wanted to see you,” I said, trying not to blush at his words.

“Do you miss me already?  Too bad.  I’ve moved on,” he taunted.

“No you haven’t.  All you’ve done is change addresses,” I said. 

I’d spoken as quietly as ever, but I believed every word.  For the first time since I’d met the Spirit of the Ring, his confidence slipped.  I wasn’t sure what, if anything, was in hiding behind it.

“Why are you here?” he asked harshly.

“To say good-bye.”  I paused and looked at him.  It wasn’t anything like looking in the mirror, even without the scar.  He was more determined.  A lot of people, me included, would have said he was the stronger man.  But when I looked in his eyes, all I could think was that he looked lost, and I couldn’t leave him like that.  I’d hidden behind him for years.  I owed it to both of us to tell him that he was wrong.  I drew in a breath and added, “I’m here to tell you that you should try have a life for yourself that doesn’t revolve around revenge.”

He stared at me… taking me seriously for possibly the first time since we’d met.  “Justice… Retribution… call it what you will – I will have it.  I will never turn from that path.  My parents distracted the soldiers so I could escape.  They smiled as they ordered me to run and hide.  I remembered their smiles for a long time.  Then I realized that they died comforted by the thought I would live to avenge them.”

“Maybe they were happy you’d get to live at all.  Maybe that’s all they wanted,” I said quietly.

“Don’t presume to speak for them!  They believed that an eye must pay for an eye – and a death must be answered with death.  I will not reject their ways!” he yelled.

I thought of my dad, running back to Egypt as soon as Mom and Amane’s bodies had been cremated… preferring living with the ancient dead instead of the newly created ghosts of his wife and daughter… leaving me behind in his rush to escape.

“Sometimes, your parents are wrong and you have to reject their choices or die inside.  Sometimes you have to find your own truths, your own way to live.  You didn’t get a chance to do that.  But you know what?  You had 3,000 years.  Whatever mess you made of your life is partly your own fault.  Dragging everyone else into it doesn’t change that.” I kept eye contact, knowing he’d read any hesitation on my part as weakness, as an excuse to reject my words.

“My little landlord has gotten brave now that he doesn’t have to worry about me taking control,” he taunted.

“You didn’t take control.  I gave it to you.  And that wasn’t good for either of us. You kept calling me your host.  I’m sorry I wasn’t a better one,” I told him.

I smiled in farewell and took off the VR helmet, coming back to myself in the Kaiba Corporation computer lab.  My friends were waiting.

“You okay?” Honda asked.  He dropped next to my chair and put a hand on my shoulder.

“I’m fine,” I answered, hoping it was true.

“You weren’t gone long,” Jounouchi said.

“Just long enough to finally figure out what I had to say.”  I looked at their puzzled faces and grinned.  “You know what I really want?”

“Anything, buddy,” Jounouchi said.  Honda nodded.

“Let’s go get those burgers,” I said as I headed for the door.  Domino was my home.  It was time to start living in it, and I couldn’t imagine a better way than by sharing some fries with my friends.

* * *

.

**_Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter and all the proceeding ones._ **

**AUTHOR’S NOTES:**   I’m always curious to see which narratives get paired together.  Usually, of course, they end up in the same chapter because they move the plot forward or because they follow each other in chronological order.  Sometimes though, they feel like they belong together because the share a common theme: in this case, the past.  Kaiba and Bakura are two characters that are strongly marked by their pasts, but because those pasts are so different, the approach they take towards their pasts are different as well. Although I can easily imagine Kaiba going on a millennia long quest for revenge if anything happened to Mokuba.

When I first wrote the outline for this story, I had no idea that Kaiba had recreated the orphanage dormitory in his safe house.  The last chapter was originally going to end fairly soon after the challenge Mokuba faced… giving Kaiba and Yami just enough time for a little romance.  But once I started working on the logistics of the scene, I clearly had to get them out of the hallway.  So they wandered downstairs and opened a door – and I realized I had absolutely no idea what was on the other side. 

Part of me was rooting for a dungeon with all kinds of kinky restraints but (to go on a bit of a tangent) one of the hardest things about writing is accepting that just because an answer sounds like fun, it doesn’t mean it’s the right answer.  And once I thought about what might be at the foundation of Kaiba’s little horror house I knew that the place where Kaiba felt the most alone and helpless and (in all the worst senses of the word) young would be behind the door.  And, since I have a love for probably something less than subtle imagery, I really fell for the idea of Kaiba making love to Yami in the place where he felt the most alone and unwanted.

**Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my Live Journal account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated.

_To everyone who’s been following this story through all the chapters: Thank you and I’d really like to know what you think.  As always, comments are appreciated._

 

 


	46. Shadow of Infinity

**CHAPTER 46:  SHADOW OF INFINITY**

 

_Jerry Seinfeld created a television show dedicated to the proposition that sometimes nothing happens.  For nine seasons it was what people said, not what they did, that mattered._

_Works for me…_

 

**KAIBA’S NARRATIVE**

 

I hadn’t intended to doze off, but I woke up with a start to find Yami lying on top of me.  He was leaning his head on his folded arms and staring sleepily at me; the gleam of his half-lidded eyes shone in the dim light.

“Go to sleep,” I said.

“I will.  I like looking at you,” he answered.

I grunted in reply.

“Did I wake you?” Yami asked.

I shook my head.  “It’s almost dawn.  If we were home, I’d be at my computer working until it was time to wake Mokuba up by now anyway.”

“Home…” Yami repeated, drawing the word out.  He swallowed as though it had gotten lodged in his throat.

I stared at him, suddenly alert.  “What’s the matter?” I asked, automatically tightening my grip on his body.

“Pegasus,” Yami answered.

I nodded.  I didn’t like the thought of accepting his help, regardless of how convenient.  But we’d agreed we were going to do it anyway – or I thought we had.  Now I realized we’d never talked about it.  I tried for flippancy.  “You have to admit that when Pegasus pays off his debts, he does it in style.”

I should have known that Yami wouldn’t just laugh it off.

“I was always so careful not to steal time from Yugi, not to take a second longer than I needed to protect him.  How is this different?” Yami whispered.

“Pegasus made his choice.  You’re not cheating him out of anything.  Weren’t you listening?” I yelled, my words sounding even louder in the empty room.

“It still feels wrong.  Pegasus should be making a life for himself outside – not choosing to remain stuck in here.”

“Everything Pegasus wants is here!  Just like I thought all you wanted was to go home, to have a life of your own!”  I didn’t understand where this conversation was going – and I didn’t like it.

“Can’t you see how intolerable this is?” Yami roared, pulling a little off me in his agitation.  Once again, I’d managed to make him yell as loudly as me.  It no longer felt like a victory.

“No.  I don’t.  I’ve never had the luxury of finding survival intolerable.  I just took it, every time,” I answered.

“Seto…” Yami said.  It reminded me of the way he’s repeated my name over and over when we’d made love.  That suddenly felt like it had never happened.

I’m usually fine with silence; now I rushed into speech.  “I get why you offered to give up your body if that’s what you thought Yugi needed you to do. But this…”  I paused and looked around at the sterile room where I’d spent two years of my life, where I’d learned about the costs of survival.  Last night, with Yami, I’d convinced myself that those days were gone, that they were in the past where they belonged.  I looked at our makeshift bed, at the rumpled, still warm sheets.  They were the illusion.  I’d been right after all in putting this lifeless room at the foundation of my safe house.  This was reality.

It was the flip side of trust: if Yami stayed I’d feel betrayed.  I’d bleed every time I remembered how he’d said he loved me; I’d mock myself for listening, for starting to believe until my own self-disgust cured me of ever hoping again.  And I didn’t want Yami to be the one to prove that what I wanted was never going to matter enough.

Yami put one hand on either side of my face and wrenched my gaze back to him.  “Of course I want to live!  Never doubt that – or that I want to spend that life with you!”  Yami gave up on words, at least temporarily.  He moved forward on the bed, leaned down and kissed me.  It started out soft and gentle.  It didn’t end that way.  Yami lay down again, rested his head against my shoulder and looked up at the paint-cracked ceiling.  I shifted slightly so I could see his face.

“I never thought about living a life of my own before coming here.  Even when Yugi and I talked about the future, I never said a word.  It seemed like too great an impossibility to even mention,” he said.

“It’s rare enough to get the things you do ask for, much less the things you don’t,” I agreed.

“I’m going home with you.  Never doubt that.  I just wish…” He smiled.  I’ve rarely seen anything as sad or as determined as Yami’s face at that moment.  “I just wish for more impossible things.”

“It’s a done deal.  Pegasus won’t come home with us.  He went to a lot of trouble to ensure he couldn’t.  You know that, right?” I said.

Yami nodded.  “I know.”

“Pegasus was right about one more thing – I won’t be able to delete this world.  I’m going to have to quarantine it.  That means we can’t afford to leave that fourth pod lying around.  It’s too dangerous.  We can’t risk anything escaping later,” I continued.

I know, Kaiba,” he repeated.

“But that doesn’t change how you feel, does it?  Look, Yami… if using the pod Pegasus brought here is the deal breaker for you, there’s a solution.  We just won’t do it.  Before Pegasus arrived, we’d planned on sharing a pod to go home, remember?  I was going to adapt it so we could both use it together.  We could still do that.”

It wasn’t often I managed to surprise Yami.  His mouth dropped open.

“What? Are you crazy?” he yelled.

A hundred snide remarks crowded into my head. “I’m not the one refusing a free ride home,” topped the chart, but I managed to keep from saying any of them. 

“I don’t want you to live with regrets; I don’t want remorse to be a stowaway on the ride home,” I said instead, settling for the simple truth.

“We only came up with that plan because we were desperate and there was no other choice!  You’re volunteering to risk your life!”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” I pointed out with a grin.

“No.  I’m not allowing you to die senselessly,” Yami stated.

I couldn’t help smirking at him.  “Stop acting like I couldn’t pull it off.  Are you doubting my engineering skills?” 

“I’m never doubting anything about you again,” he said.  “I knew of your devotion, your determination… but I never expected your generosity.  But you’re wrong, Kaiba: the only thing I’d truly regret – now and forever - is allowing you to risk your life needlessly.” 

“You’re coming home?” I asked, needing him to put it in words of one syllable.

“Yes.”

I smiled as Yami settled against me.  He rubbed his head against my shoulder.  I guess our fight – or whatever it was – was over.  “Do you think we’ll be like this when we get back?” I asked.

“What are you asking?  If we’ll fight?  If we’ll scream at each other?  If we’ll find our way back?  Yes… on all counts.”

We lay there in silence.  Just as I thought Yami was falling asleep, he chuckled.  “I guess Yugi was right: this game really is like a dress rehearsal.  I’m glad we’ve both gotten a few dry runs in before we leave.”

I grunted.  I’d never had the chance to practice and get things right.  It was strange… this game was set on lethal levels but it had provided a measure of safety I’d never known before.

“Don’t worry.  We’ll figure it out together, Seto,” Yami added.

I was distracted by the way Yami kept flipping back and forth between my given and family names as if I was two separate people and he couldn’t decide who he was talking to.  I'd been trying to find a pattern.  He called me “Seto” when we made love.  I’d say he reserved “Kaiba” for when I pissed him off, but that wasn’t the whole picture.  The room was so quiet; it made it easier to ask, “Why did you call me ‘Kaiba’ earlier?”

 “Because that’s how I think of you, as my proud rival, as the man who can stare down destiny and make it blink first.”

 “Then why call me Seto?”

 “Because no one else does,” he said, sleep finally starting to slur his voice.

I didn’t bother to correct Yami although plenty of people had called me Seto.  My aunt and uncle had avoided talking to me as much as possible, but they’d used my given name when they’d dumped us and driven off, preferring to forget we’d ever had a claim to the title of “family.”  The orphanage had used “Seto” because it was easier.  Hell, even Gozaburo had called me “Seto” on those rare occasions when he’d decided “boy” or “dog” wouldn’t do. 

But however inaccurate, Yami had a point; I liked hearing him say my given name.

Yami’s breathing had gained the steady pace achievable only in sleep.  As I listened to his gentle exhalations, I felt myself relax, as if he was calming us both.  But I suppose I just wasn’t made for peace, because as I lay there with Yami in my arms, I gradually became aware that someone had entered the safe house.  I wasn’t sure how I knew.  Maybe it was because I felt more in tune with this game lately, or maybe it was just that it was _my_ safe house and this room was at its heart.  It wasn’t an enemy; the coding protecting us was still in place, but it wasn’t a friend either.  I slipped out from under Yami and went to put on my shirt and pants.

“Seto?” Yami asked sleepily.

“I need to clear my head.  Don’t worry; I won’t leave the house, at least not without letting you know.”

Yami looked at me suspiciously.

“I promise,” I added.

He nodded, his eyes never leaving my face.  Finally he dropped his head back on the pillows.

I went upstairs.  Bakura was leaning against the front door.  He took a couple of steps forward when he saw me.

“How did you get here?  It’s a safe house!” I said.

“That just means I can’t hurt you in here,” he answered.

“Stalk much?  For a guy who insists we’re a bunch of puppets, you seem to spend a lot of time following us around,” I observed.  “You should have been denied entry.  Unhide…”

“Don’t bother checking.  I’m a thief.  Breaking in is what I do,” Bakura said.  He moved forward again until he was standing a few paces away – near enough for us to talk without raising our voices, but not so close that either would see the other as a threat.  It was well played. 

“Bullshit.  You’re talking to the person whose memorized every line of coding, even the ones that have been corrupted by your little playmates,” I said.

“They’re hardly little.”  He smiled and looked at the narrow hallway, the cobwebbed ceiling, the dark wood paneling.  “Some décor.”

“Quit stalling.  There’s no way you could get in here if you were still part of the background.  In order to gain entry you would have had to become a player…”

“The end game is in sight.  I can’t just sit around waiting.  I need to be a part of it.”  In our earlier encounters, Bakura had been irritatingly smug and distant.  Now his voice was low, his words raced out of his mouth, eager for escape; his veneer of detachment was gone as if it had never existed.

I laughed.  “I was surprised you lasted this long without joining in.  It’s nice to see I was right.”

“Having you all so close to dying… it excites me.  Three thousand years of waiting… watching the Ring being passed from owner to owner.  And every single one of them, except the last, was drawn to its power; they all wanted to control it, to use it for their own gain.”  Bakura grinned.  “None of them benefited.”

I couldn’t help it.  I laughed along with him.  It seemed fair enough to me.

We looked at each other, then at the floor, careful to keep each other in sight through the corners of our eyes.  Neither of us was comfortable with this unaccountable moment of camaraderie.

“Unlike the rest of the pharaoh’s precious council, you, at least, never offered ignorant words of self-righteous condemnation,” he said with a sly grin.

“Someone took the most crucial thing in your life.  You wanted to make them suffer.  What part of this am I supposed to condemn?  But what will you do when it’s over? I hate to break it to you, but you’re dead.”

“So is your precious pharaoh,” he returned.

I wasn’t about to let on Yami wasn’t nearly as dead as Bakura thought.  “We have a battle ahead.  You know it as well as I.  Win or lose, it’s ending soon.  What will you do when your hunt is over?” I asked.

“What will you?” he countered.

I didn’t have an answer.  Even if we survived, Mokuba would eventually grow up.  One day, I’d have finished my task.  What would I do then?  Until I’d come here, I’d never asked that question.  Like Bakura, my mission had taken all my attention.

“There’s nothing else left in my life but my quest for justice,” Bakura said quietly.

I nodded.  “As long as you’re chasing revenge, you have your family.  They’re in front of you every moment, every day; they’re the goal you keep trying to reach.  But it’s a zero-sum game.  You only have them as long as your mission continues.  Once it ends, even if you win – even if you leave this place and go back to our world – you lose them.  You lose everything.  It’s inevitable.”

“You’re a fool if you think your world has anything I want.  I have another destination in mind,” Bakura said.

“Oh yeah, where’s that?” I asked.

“Home.”

I rolled my eyes.  I was disappointed.  Bakura was just another idiot after all.  “How do you think you’re going to go somewhere that hasn’t existed for 3,000 years?”

“There are realms beyond the world you so ignorantly refer to as the ‘real’ one.  But before I can reach it, my family will be avenged.  Their murder will not go unanswered as though their lives had no meaning, as though their deaths were no loss.  The pharaoh killed them.  He will pay.”

I knew we had seen a village burning the first time we’d entered this virtual world.  It didn’t add up. 

“I don’t believe you,” I told Bakura.  “Yami’s the kind of arrogant bastard who’d have been more likely to stand there preaching about the sanctity of life or some such bullshit.”

“You saw the flames of Kul Elna,” Bakura countered.

“Once.  I haven’t seen them again since we entered.  Yami hasn’t either.  Maybe you’re the one they’re haunting, not us.”

“How could that be?  I haven’t been a player in this game – not until tonight.” Bakura reminded me.

“That doesn’t mean you’re not haunted,” I said

“What do you imagine haunts me, priest?” he taunted, leaning back and throwing on a smug grin that didn’t fool me for an instant.  I’d plastered the same look on my own face to hide my doubts often enough.

"What seems to haunt everyone in here.  The past,” I said.  “You don’t even care that you’re in your own body, that you’re free of that weird necklace, do you?”

 “Why should I?”

 I shook my head.  “You poor bastard.  You had a second chance, the same as Yami.  You blew it and you don’t even realize it.”

 “A second chance at what?” Bakura asked.

 “To decide for yourself what you want,” I answered.

 “Revenge is the only thing that matters. I want to go home,” he said.

 “On Yami?  What’d he do?  Burn your village in his diapers?”

 “Pharaoh burned it,” he insisted like a computer program stuck in a feedback loop… like me and the Wicked Worm Beast.  I pushed aside that comparison.

 “That’s a title, not a name.  Doesn’t it matter to you which pharaoh was responsible?” I asked.

 “No.  The sins of the fathers will be visited on the sons.”

 That stopped me.  It matched my attitude towards Kaiba Corporation.  I’d chosen Gozaburo.  It was only fair I inherited his sins along with his company.  I was about to agree with Bakura when I remembered:  technically speaking, one could argue that Mokuba was Gozaburo’s son too.

“Not always.  Not every son,” I said instead.  “Not if there’s someone more directly to blame still standing.  If I was the one who’d sold my hypothetical soul for revenge, I’d want to make sure I hit the right target.”  I laughed in his face scornfully, wanting to pay him back for invading my safe house.  “Maybe your ghosts are more easily appeased.”

“It was done in his name.” Despite Bakura’s efforts it came out a question.

“How could you possibly know who ordered the hit?  With a face like yours, I have a hard time believing you were part of some high level pharaoh’s council.”

“How can I be certain unless I challenge him?  I have to meet the pharaoh in battle.”

There it was again – that unacceptable feeling of camaraderie.  Duels are how we learn about ourselves and the people we face, how we test what’s crucial to us… how we know what’s true.  Against my will, Bakura had struck a chord.  He had a right to his answers.  He had a right to confront Yami.

Bakura looked at me; for the first time doubt had cracked the assured surface of his façade.

“If it wasn’t done in his name, if there was someone more directly to blame, that would mean…” he murmured.  I was sure I wasn’t meant to hear that.  It was another slip.

“That you’ve been chasing after the wrong guy for 3,000 years,” I agreed.

“Damn you!  Was making me doubt part of your strategy?” he howled, reaching for the knife in his belt that the safe house wouldn’t let him draw, much less throw.

“For once, no.  It seems to have served the same purpose, though,” I observed.

“So this is a haunted house, after all,” he whispered.

“No. The only ghosts here are the ones that followed you in.  And I didn’t invite any of you.”

I expected the door to slam.  I was surprised at how quietly Bakura closed it as he left. 

I turned to go downstairs, but I was wide awake now and Yami was probably asleep.  I detoured into the main room where we’d summoned the NPCs earlier.  I had someone I knew would listen, even if I couldn’t think of anything to say.

 

 

* * *

**SUGOROKU’S NARRATIVE**

 

Kaiba glared at me as I appeared in front of him.  “What’s wrong with you, old man?  You should be in bed sleeping.”

Seen like this, in a slightly wrinkled button-down shirt and pants, and without his trademark duster flaring behind him, I was stuck again by how young he looked when you saw him properly.  And it was hard to keep from laughing at the way Kaiba kept summoning me only to yell at me the moment I arrived.

“You’ll be home soon.  I can miss a night’s sleep.”  I studied him for a minute, taking in how finely drawn his face was, how charcoal-dark smudges seemed to have settled permanently under his eyes.  “Better than you apparently,” I added.

His lips tightened into a familiar thin line.

“Now that we’ve established we’re both awake when we should both be resting…” I let my voice trail off in what I hoped was an invitation to continue (or begin) the conversation.

Kaiba started pacing.  He ran one hand through his hair.  With an abruptness I was getting used to, he turned and faced me.  He ran through the highlights of Mokuba’s duel.

“I didn’t want Mokuba to do it,” he said when he finished.

“I know.”

“I’m supposed to protect him, not the other way around.  I promised to be his father.”

“Yes.  But you never promised to be perfect.  You’ve always done your best.  Mokuba knows that.  He always has.”

“I’ve failed him so many times.  Why does everyone think _trying_ is what matters?”

If it had been anyone but Kaiba, I would have recognized it right away: he wanted reassurance.  He was too inexperienced to realize he’d stumbled into the oldest dilemma of being a parent.  He didn’t know that these doubts – this feeling of living on the edge of failure, the fear that your best was never going to be good enough – was a normal part of being a parent. 

“Because trying is what matters… because no one ever totally succeeds.  Mokuba’s a fine young man.  That didn’t happen by itself.  You love each other.  At the end of the day, isn’t that all that matters?”

“I don’t know,” he said with a scowl.  “I’ve tried to destroy the past.  I don’t know if I can live with it.”

“Then you’re giving it a power it shouldn’t have – the power to haunt your future.”

There was a change in the shadows from the hallway.  I was about to say something when I caught Kaiba’s slight backwards glance and his even slighter smile.

“I tried to tell Bakura he was fighting the wrong enemies.  Maybe I should have been talking to myself.  Hell, maybe I was.”

I had no idea what he was talking about.  Before I could decide whether to ask for an explanation, he changed the topic yet again.

“I met the Blue Eyes White Dragon.  It wasn’t a hologram.  It was real.  It lived.  I thought you should know.”  

I waited, but Kaiba had fallen silent again.  “Why tell me?” I asked.  “Because the card was once mine?”

“No.  It never should have belonged to you.  I was meant to own it.”  He looked me right in the eye and dared me to disagree. 

“Something that needs to be stolen can never be truly yours,” I told him, refusing to back down.

His lips twisted as he choked down my words.  “You’re right.  I should have dueled you for it honorably.  And I would have won.”

“Maybe you’ve gotten a second chance.  That seems to be what this game is for,” I said.

Kaiba shook his head.  “I destroyed the card. You know that.”

“I think you’ve regained it nonetheless.  Didn’t you say it’s here in this virtual world?”

Kaiba nodded.  “Yeah, the game’s used it against me. Twice.”

 "I don’t think it’s here to fight you.  Not anymore.  Maybe it’s waiting.”

“For what?” Kaiba asked.

“For you to understand it was never your enemy.”  I paused, thinking of my… no, of _our_ dragon.  “What did it look like?”

“She was magnificent.  I wish you could have seen her.  But Yami can tell you all about it.  I have a question that needs answering, first.   That should be okay with you, since you’re the one that gave it to me.”  He turned towards the hallway.  “It’s okay to come out of the shadows, Yami.  It’s time for me to leave anyway.”

Kaiba nodded to us both when Yami entered the room.  He put his hand on Yami’s shoulder as he went past him and down the stairs.

Yami smiled at me in greeting.

“How often were you awake when Kaiba and I talked?” I asked curiously.  His entrance seemed suspiciously well timed.

“The sound of his voice wakes me up.  He knew every time.  He just never acknowledged it, so neither did I.  It seemed easier that way.” 

Yami fell silent.  I wondered if he’d been looking for Kaiba – or he needed to talk.

“Is everything okay?” I asked. 

I almost smiled as Yami began pacing the room, unconsciously imitating his lover.  He stopped, turned, faced me, and with equal abruptness told me about Pegasus’ arrival – and his decision to stay here.  I didn’t mention I’d heard the news already. 

“Kaiba thinks I’m a fool for feeling guilty about using that fourth pod.  It’s simpler for Kaiba.  He said it himself: he never had the luxury of looking a gift horse in the mouth.  And if there’s one thing he believes it’s that everyone has the right to chart their own course no matter how incomprehensible to anyone else,” Yami said.

My guess was that Kaiba was simply afraid to face another loss.  But saying so wouldn’t help Yami.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“When I first emerged from the Puzzle, when I was trying to protect Yugi… I did so many things that were irrevocable.  I could have easily condemned Kaiba to death or insanity with all the rest, never realizing he had the potential to change.  Yugi stopped me at Duelists Kingdom.  I don’t know what prevented me the other times.  And if that was true of Kaiba, what of the others?  Didn’t they deserve the same chance?  Why am I being blessed with the gift I denied so many others?”

“If the scum you faced deserved the doubtful chance to redeem themselves, why not you?” I said, turning Yami’s question back on him.

“I want the chance to live – not as a spirit or in those brief moments when Yugi needed me – but truly and all the time.  But I never wanted Pegasus to leave this world to make that happen,” Yami said.

“You can’t change Pegasus’ actions.  Let something good come from them,” I urged him.

 “I already promised Kaiba I would.  He offered to go back to our original plan.  He was going to risk his life and have us both go back in the same pod, just so I wouldn’t have to second guess my decision.  I owe it to him to settle this in my mind, here and now, so that I go back with as few regrets as possible.”

I frowned at Yami.  “Haven’t you two learned anything?  You both hold on to your lives way too loosely.”

“Pegasus reprogrammed the pods to ensure he had a one-way trip here.  It’s permanent,” Yami said, unaware of how completely he’d brushed off my comment.  I rolled my eyes.  I seemed destined to spend tonight talking to moody, troubled young men who ignored every other word I said.

Yami shook his head and took another quick turn around the room.  “Yugi was purely and simply horrified when Pegasus told us what he’d done.”

“It’s always sad when someone that young would rather leave the world than live in it,” I said pointedly.  “You’ve told me how Kaiba feels and now Yugi.  What about you?”

Yami shook his head again.  “I don’t know.  I should feel as Yugi does.  I know that.”

“But…” I prompted when Yami stopped.

“Part of me can’t help wondering if Pegasus… what if he’s doing the right thing… for him at least?  Yugi would disagree.  He must be right.  I promised at Duelists Kingdom to defer to him.  He’s been my guide ever since,” Yami said, his words tumbling over each other in their rush to be heard.

"But you’re not Yugi.  You don’t need to filter your thoughts through his any longer.”

“Look at the things I did before I took Yugi as my model!  I lived only for my penalty games and to exact retribution.  I didn’t even know that anything else existed!” Yami said.

“You’ve changed since then, Yami.  Yugi can’t be your moral compass.  That’s not fair to either of you.  You have a perfectly good one of your own.  You just need to trust it.”  I reached out and briefly held his hands for emphasis.

“What if it’s just pure selfishness that makes me want to believe Pegasus knows what he’s doing?” he asked.

“I don’t believe that,” I said when his voice trailed off.  I’d run out of things to say but I smiled encouragingly.  I wanted to help; I was touched and slightly flattered that he’d sought me out.

“Pegasus’ wife is here,” Yami began again.  “He won’t leave her.  Is he holding his life too loosely – or is he gripping the one thing that matters to him as tightly as he can?”

“But Yami… she isn’t alive.”

“Neither is Noa.  It’s hard to remember that when I talk to him.”  He paused, then swallowed and added, “Neither was I.  But even when I was nothing more than a spirit, I felt alive.  I was real enough for Kaiba to duel in the world outside.  I was real enough to make love to Kaiba here, even before I took the Puzzle for my own.  How can I condemn Pegasus for wanting the same thing Kaiba and I have shared – or for moving heaven and earth to find it again?”

I stared at him.  I didn’t – I couldn’t – agree.  But I couldn’t argue either.

“Kaiba would say the most important thing is independence, freedom of action.  Yugi would say it’s life.  But what if it’s love?  Then isn’t Pegasus right to follow his – even if the road leads to what looks like a dead-end here?”

“Luckily the world’s large enough to hold more than one right answer,” I pointed out.

Yami shook his head for a third time.  “When I came into this game I was so confident.  Now I feel like I don’t understand.”

“What?” I asked.

“Anything.  Life,” he answered.

I smiled.  Like Kaiba, Yami was so intensely serious – and so curiously innocent all at the same time.

“Are you expecting me to tell you the meaning of life in the next five minutes?  It’s a rare man who figures that one out while still on this side of the grave,” I said.

We heard footsteps in the hallway.  I assumed that Kaiba had come to find Yami.

“The only thing I’m sure of any more is that I want to live so very badly.  I want to stand beside Yugi as his friend; I want to hold Kaiba in my arms and never let go,” Yami said, speaking loudly enough to be heard in the hallway outside.

“Then anything you don’t understand can wait– you already know the one thing that matters.  And unlike some people, you figured out it’s better to talk to your friends, instead of triggering some ridiculous and dangerous duel to sort things out,” I said, raising my voice as well.  

As if on cue we heard Kaiba’s short, choked off laugh.  Then the front door opened and closed.

“I really need to learn to be careful of his promises,” Yami murmured.  “Kaiba didn’t say he wouldn’t leave the safe house – just that he wouldn’t leave without telling me that he was going.  Which he did earlier... in the most indirect, easy to overlook way possible.”

“Are you going after him?” I asked.

I was surprised when Yami shook his head.  “I’ve made some awful blunders over the last couple of weeks and Kaiba has trusted me all the way.  I think it’s time I just accepted that he knows what he’s doing.”

Everything I’d seen of Kaiba had led me to the opposite conclusion.  Then again, I wasn’t in love.

 

 

* * *

.

**_Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing and for putting up with all my dithering._ **

 

**AUTHOR’S NOTE:**   I keep feeling like I should apologize with each post because each chapter seems to take a little longer than the last to post, but as it gets closer to the end I’m probably getting a bit over-cautious about wanting to make sure I’m setting things up so that it all works. I do realize though, that the slow pace makes it harder for people to follow the story and I’m sorry for that.

**Kaiba and Bakura:**   Of all the characters in Yu-Gi-Oh! I can see Kaiba being the one most likely to understand Bakura’s decisions.  If Mokuba had been killed at Kul Elna, I can see Kaiba being willing to pursue vengeance even if it took him millennia.  In the manga one of my favorite moments is when Bakura comes into the pharaoh’s palace with the mummified remains of Atemu’s father.  Atemu’s council are furious with him, and he’s equally angry that no one considers what happened to his family to be a crime.  The only exception is (High Priest) Seto.  When they duel he’s determined to kill Bakura and shows every sign of enjoyment at the prospect, but his initial reaction was more a mixture of amusement and a touch of respect.  He says, “For a miserable thief to stand before six priests takes courage.  We’ll make sure the canopic jar for your guts is a somewhat larger one.”  (Okay, I partly repeated that line because it never fails to crack me up.)  Anyway, Kaiba and Bakura are still on opposite sides in this story, but I wanted to keep the sense that despite that, these were two characters that understood each other.  This scene was actually one of the earliest ones I wrote for the story, and I was surprised at how little I changed it from the initial version.

**Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my Live Journal account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated.

_To everyone who’s been following this story through all the chapters: Thank you and I’d really like to know what you think.  As always, comments are appreciated._

 


	47. Rise of the Dragon Lord

**CHAPTER 47: RISE OF THE DRAGON LORD**

" _If you build it, they will come…"_

_It's amazing how whether you're talking about plopping baseball diamonds down in the middle of Iowa cornfields or building virtual worlds, the same rules apply._

_Even when you don't want them to._

**KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

I left Yami and Sugoroku talking and went back downstairs to the basement. I crossed the threshold and paused, but no miniature ghosts appeared to greet me. There was no need. The room had shaped me well enough; I didn't need a reminder.

The beds were still jumbled together. Yami had laid my coat across the edge of one. I grabbed it and shrugged it on. I wanted to be fully dressed for my next encounter. I thought of the deceptively childish school jackets Gozaburo had insisted on. The slightest wrinkle had been enough to earn me a smack in the mouth. Although, as in any video game, my clothes were pristine once again, I could only imagine how much Gozaburo must hate my current choices – each long coat accentuated the fact I was now far taller than he.

Once that had mattered. The garish purple suits… my Battle City attire… they'd been a way to thumb my nose at Gozaburo, even though I'd believed him dead and truly gone. I straightened the lapel on my midnight blue coat, made sure the black sleeves barely showed beneath its cuffs. The urge to tick him off was still there. But the clothes I'd worn to piss on his grave had become my signature. I'd made them my own.

I'd grown past him. It was time to prove it.

I called up the game schematics. I'd been hoarding permissions to change the game like a miser, refusing to spend them on anything that wouldn't help to get us home. Now I was wasting one on myself; I couldn't go back home and have everything be the same. That wasn't winning. I knew Mokuba and Yami wouldn't mind, Hell, they'd probably applaud. It still felt odd.

I found what I was looking for quickly. I'd incorporated common role playing game features into this world – including the ability to bypass lesser challenges and summon mid or high level bosses. Gozaburo and Zorc had ignored it, just like they had every other commercial add-on. I activated the feature.

It was a gamble. I admitted that to myself as I walked up the steps and down the hall. But the game was interpreting everything that went on according to the parameters I'd set up. Since Gozaburo was refusing to become a player, the game could only see him as part of its cast of characters. I grinned as I imagined Gozaburo's reaction to being summoned at my request.

Yami and Sugoroku were still in the front room, talking. I stopped to listen, smiling as Yami said that he wanted to hold me and never let go. I wouldn't mind that either. Then Sugoroku raised his voice loudly enough to make it obvious he wanted to be overheard as he said, "And unlike some people, you figured out it's better to talk to your friends, instead of triggering some ridiculous and dangerous duel to sort things out."

I chuckled as I opened the door. I could imagine Yugi telling me the same thing – or thinking it anyway; he was probably too polite to say it out loud. I guess talking worked for some people. I preferred challenges. Yami hadn't run after me yelling, even though he had to have heard me leave. I hoped that meant he agreed or at least that he understood.

I went down the front stairs. The door closed behind me as quietly as it did for Bakura. I blinked a little in the sudden light. It was dawn. I didn't believe in omens – especially conveniently timed and clichéd ones – but I didn't mind seeing the sun.

Gozaburo was waiting. I'd expected him to be in full on monster mode, just like he'd appeared in Noa's virtual world. Instead he looked like the man who'd raised me: the same red suit, bushy eyebrows, and disdainful glare. The same scowl.

Every encounter after that initial chess game had been at his instigation. This felt good.

"Yes," I said as he turned to look at me. "I summoned you. It's time to end this."

"So… you still need me," he sneered.

I shook my head, suddenly thinking of Bakura. He had spent 3,000 years hunting for something more than revenge – chasing the dream of getting his family back, chasing acknowledgement that they'd mattered. I'd taunted him last night. Now under the cold dawn sky, I wondered if I was any different. I'd spent so much time trying to prove to Gozaburo that I was better… without even knowing how to finish that sentence. Better than him? Better than a stray dog? Better than the hate-filled bastard he'd raised me to be? Worth more than anyone had ever believed? Good enough to win?

All these years I'd let Gozaburo define our battles, almost forgetting that it was my life I was fighting for.

"I made you, boy," he said, rushing into speech, as impatient as ever with my silence.

I nodded. "You did. You made me into your damn house killer. Now it's up to me to rebuild."

"I tried to make you into a man. One strong enough to crush any opposition without mercy," he said.

I snorted, thinking of Sugoroku asking me if power and strength were the same. Gozaburo had one but not the other. It had taken me this long to tell the difference.

"You've given your brother, your _friends_ so much power over you." He made the word, "friends" into a sneer, just like I so often had. "Unlike you, I fear nothing."

"Try telling that to someone who doesn't know you. You were so afraid of losing to me, you jumped out of a window rather than face the fact it had just happened. And the weird thing is, I didn't mean to kill you." I'd never admitted that to anyone but it was true. I hadn't planned his death, hadn't even wanted it. He was, for lack of a better word, my father. I just wanted him to stop killing people – and to stop using me to do it. Gozaburo had stiffened in outrage at my words. I took a breath. He'd probably see this as another proof that I was as weak as he kept insisting, but I owed it to someone – myself, perhaps – to tell him. "You were the person that dyed my hands with blood, but I never meant to add your name to the count of my victims. I was so focused on winning I never stopped to think how you'd react when you lost."

"You mean my death was an after-thought?" Gozaburo yelled.

I shook my head and grinned. Lately I seemed to be doing a better job of pissing people off when I wasn't trying.

"What do you expect to gain from this charade?" he asked.

It was strange to have an honest conversation with Gozaburo. "I need to prove I'm not you," I said as I summoned the monster that had always represented my future.

Gozaburo stared in surprise as my Blue Eyes White Dragon took the field. I narrowed my eyes in response. He knew my signature card; its appearance now could hardly be unexpected. Gozaburo shook his head, obviously re-adjusting his strategy, before calling the Spell Card, Future Visions to the field. My Blue Eyes White Dragon vanished, returning to my hand as though banished.

Windows started swirling around me, each one showing – just as the card's title promised – a different view of my future. I tried to scan them, but they moved too fast. I hated the past, but I didn't want to see whatever uncertain hells the card was calling to life.

One window opened in front of me as though it had been lying in wait, ready to catch me the moment I let my guard down. Instantly, I was standing on an atoll, the kind that's just perfect for testing bombs. Gozaburo had come into this world with me. He was too far away for me to see the expression on his face, but I was sure it was both angry and gloating.

I watched as the plane came towards us, recognizing its silhouette. I'd designed it: the KC-B360. It sliced through the air like a knife through butter, graceful despite its size and deadly payload. Slight as my smile was, Gozaburo caught it.

"Go ahead… take pride in your work, son."

I wanted to yell that I'd never been his son, but he'd molded me, and that's what fathers do.

Some expression must have leaked onto my face because Gozaburo chuckled. "You didn't take much convincing to design that bomber. All I had to do was mention your brother's name. Were you really that afraid for him – or did you just need an excuse to do what you were itching to anyway?" he asked, his voice carrying despite the distance between us.

I shrugged, my eyes still fixed on the plane. The setting changed. Instead of a barren atoll, I was knee deep in a killing field, struggling to keep my balance amid the dead. I stared into the sky. For all the purity of its lines, the clean grace of its engineering, the KC-B360, like everything else I designed under Gozaburo's tutelage, was a killing machine, a device for dropping bombs on people who couldn't escape. I looked down, facing the result of my work for Kaiba Corporation. The corpses were nameless, almost faceless in their anonymity, skin and clothes alike were dyed red.

"I know what I did. I've never denied it. You're right. I designed those weapons because I wanted to smash everything in my path. I designed them because I could. If the only trick up your sleeve is reminding me I'm truly your heir, prepare to die for the last time," I yelled.

It was only when Gozaburo snapped his fingers that I remembered: Future Visions had returned my monster to my hand. The bomber wheeled around and vanished in the distance. A fighter plane took its place, coming in low and fast. I'd have to survive its attack on my own.

It's not like I didn't know how.

I recognized the jet: a KC-ST/Mach 2.9 – the speed of the plane advertised in the name. The ST stood for Seto. It was Gozaburo's idea of a birthday present – or was it a reminder that I was tied to him forever?

I didn't have much time before it started its strafing run. I looked at the corpses at my feet. I was practically knee-deep in bodies already. My victims were my only protection until this run ended and I could summon a monster to this field.

I dived into the mound, estimating how far I had to bury myself, wondering if I would suffocate first. If I died here, embraced by my victims, crushed under their weight, torn apart by my own fighter jet – what could that be but justice?

It felt cowardly to hope for mercy, when I'd never believed in that quality before. And even if it existed, surely it was reserved for people like Yugi who had earned it?

It was dark. I could barely make out the hand in front of my eyes. It was small, much smaller than Mokuba's was now. It would never have a chance to grow. I'd sacrificed someone else's Mokuba – countless of other Mokubas – to save mine.

I couldn't even ask for forgiveness, not when I'd do it again.

I could hear the thud of bullets hitting the bodies covering mine, could feel them shake in an obscene parody of life – or worse – jerk spasmodically as they repeated their death throes over and over. Then the attack was over. I'd said – I'd once wanted desperately to believe – that war was just another game humans played. Now that I recognized that as the evasion of responsibility it was, it had come true in a way. This was a game and Gozaburo's turn had ended.

I dug myself out and faced my adoptive father. "What a cheap trick. If you were playing Future Visions, your card is poorly named. Just like you, it's stuck in the past."

"Are you sure it isn't your future as well?"

The voice sure as hell didn't belong to Gozaburo. It came from the wrong direction. I would have said it was feminine, but that implied it sounded human. She sounded so hard, as if diamonds had suddenly been given a voice.

Although Gozaburo was still too far away for me to read his expression, he was looking past me; his body language betrayed surprise.

I turned to face the one Blue Eyes White Dragon that wasn't in my deck. This wasn't the dragon I'd met when Yami had used the Millennium Rod. Kisara's voice had been warm, comforting even, in spite of everything I'd done. Now I faced the dragon that knew me best; the one that had rejected me. The last time I'd seen her, her wings had been trailing darkness, the same evil I'd surrendered to had stared back at me out of her eyes. Now her wings were those of an avenging angel. She was blindingly bright, even the scars that crossed her torso from wing-bone to hip blade radiated light. I'd stolen her once. She'd abandoned me at the first opportunity. She was still unattainable. It hurt to look at her.

I nodded, numbly. She was right. I might have stopped production but those planes were still out there. Every time they took away someone else's future, they became more firmly a part of mine.

"You said that you'd designed these weapons for Gozaburo because you wanted to… because you could. You yelled it defiantly, almost proudly. Was it that simple?" she asked.

I controlled a shiver, frozen by the ice in her voice, even though it was what I expected. I wanted to throw it in her face that yes, it had been that easy. I wanted her condemnation. I've always refused to explain, to offer anything that could be mistaken for an excuse. But I couldn't lie. Not to her.

I dug my hands into my pockets, took them out, shook the bangs out of my eyes and faced her. "Gozaburo promised me that any weapon I refused to design would be tested on Mokuba. It sounds crazy, doesn't it? Maybe it was all a bluff. Sometimes he said that's all it was, that he was just throwing me a sop to my conscience because I was weak enough to need one. I don't know. I couldn't risk it." I was appalled at how damn young I sounded, as if I was still a kid under Gozaburo's control.

"Mokuba doesn't know." It wasn't quite a question. For the first time her voice softened slightly, became sandstone instead of flint.

I shook my head. "I don't want him to find out."

Yami had told me that the demons we bring into our battles are not confined to our decks. Every time I looked at Gozaburo, I saw my own weakness; I saw the evil I could grow into, that I was pathetic enough to have accepted. This was the part of his legacy I couldn't escape. After all, I'd been his accomplice.

As if responding to my thoughts, another window opened, much too quickly for me to avoid being pulled in. I heard Gozaburo laugh even though I was alone this time. I was in my office. I looked down. I was in a dark red suit; it was the color of an old wound, Gozaburo's color. I pulled out my cell phone and looked at my reflection in the darkened screen. My face was still my own, if slightly older.

Isono came into the room. He cleared his throat. He was wearing his sunglasses; I couldn't see his eyes. "I'm sorry, sir… sorry about Mokuba-sama… sorry that his passing has led to this. But I swore I'd never work for the old Kaiba Corporation again." He bowed and left.

For a moment I felt nothing but a blinding, self-righteous anger. I looked at the computer monitor, unsurprised to see missiles that could be loaded with biochemical as well as conventional warheads staring back at me. Mokuba was dead. I wanted the world to suffer. I wanted it to feel as helpless and bereft as I did. I wanted my anger to explode across the sky, destroying everything it touched… I felt like a twelve year old again.

I wondered for the first time what demons of hatred or rage had ridden Gozaburo, had driven him to spend his life trying to increase the world's supply of misery and sorrow, never satisfied except in destruction. He couldn't even use Noa's death as an excuse, as the thing that had pushed him over the edge; Kaiba Corporation's reign of death had preceded Noa's.

I shook my head and powered off the computer. The world went dark in sync with the monitor. Blackness surrounded me, reminding me of the aftermath of Death-T, of becoming a ten year old once again, piecing together a puzzle, piecing together my life. I'd decided then, sitting in the darkness that had followed that final penalty game, that I was never going to sell death again.

Had the world gone dark or was it just that I'd closed my eyes and refused to see? "This is not my future. This will never be my future," I yelled, unsure if there was anyone out there to hear me.

When I opened my eyes I was back in front of my safe house; Future Visions' windows still swirled around me.

"I don't care what you think of me. I'll never go back," I snarled at my fourth dragon, angry that she'd misjudged me as badly as I'd misjudged myself.

"Did you design this game to answer questions or to force you to ask them?" she said.

"What do you mean?" I parried, astonished at how humble my voice could sound.

"You keep saying you want to reach a true future. How can that ever happen unless you believe you deserve one?"

"When I stole that card… I believed in you. I trusted you to lead me to my future, to want me even though I knew I'd lost myself, that I had nothing left to offer. I wanted to be wrong so badly, to have you prove I was worth more than that." I pointed to the windows that still whirled madly around us, to the future I'd just overcome. "But that's all you see when you look at me, isn't it, even now?"

She vanished into the air, the same way she had back when I'd stolen her from Yugi's grandfather, leaving my question hanging. Or maybe her disappearance was answer enough. I would have argued or asked more questions or done anything to keep her with me. I don't know why I was disappointed; she'd abandoned me at that first duel. I guess her opinion hadn't changed since then.

I suddenly realized why Future Visions was still on the field; I was the one keeping it in play. It wouldn't vanish until I began my turn, until I stopped falling under its spell and summoned a monster. But before I could move, another window opened before me, sucking me in. I was at my desk again. Just like the last time, I was a few years older, in my mid-20s at a guess. If the last window had revealed the future I feared, this was the one in my darkest moods, that I most expected to come true.

Mokuba was leaving. It wasn't big, it wasn't dramatic; there hadn't been a fight. He was simply old enough not to need me. I'd completed my task. It was time for us to go our separate ways. He didn't want any part of Kaiba Corporation… and although he would never admit it, maybe he didn't want me either.

I cleared my throat then nodded at him instead of speaking. Years of not talking had built up; now we had nothing to say to each other.

We hugged awkwardly. "I guess this is good-bye, brother," he said. No "Nisama," not even my given name, just an acknowledgement of our relationship.

I nodded and turned back to my work, to chores that had become meaningless without Mokuba's presence. I waited for the door to close. It was the last time we'd see each other. I thought of Bakura asking what I'd do when my mission was over. This was one answer.

I'd planned it out. Whatever I chose had to be quick and irreversible; I didn't want to risk a last minute resuscitation. Gozaburo had thrown himself out of a window. It would certainly do the job, but as much as I'd copied him throughout my life, I refused to do so at its ending. I'd eventually settled on liquid cyanide. Once injected, I'd die before having time to yank out the needle. I've always appreciated efficiency.

I told my assistant to hold my calls, turned my cell phone off and locked the door. I opened my briefcase and removed the small vial of cyanide and a syringe. I'd told Mokuba once that I'd inherited Kaiba Corporation's sins when I'd taken over Gozaburo's company. I'd changed the corporation; I'd been unable to atone for my role. Even my death wouldn't balance the scales, but it was all I could offer. I was tired. I'd been tired a long time. I filled the syringe then sat there, staring at it for a moment.

I shook my head, suddenly remembering Yami making the opposite choice, giving up everything – his memories, his search for his past – for the chance to live, for a chance to stay with me. And Mokuba trusted me to be there. No matter what my vision had shown, that wasn't going to change no matter how old he got. Would he see my death as another betrayal?

I'd come into this challenge to fight Gozaburo. Now I'd almost forgotten he was here. It didn't seem to matter; I'd always been my most relentless opponent. And yet… if I died here, in front of my own safe house, my death would become real. Gozaburo would have won without playing a single monster.

I suddenly saw my death, not as a penance but as a surrender. I seemed to hear my wounded dragon, saying again, "You keep saying you want to reach a true future. How can that ever happen unless you believe you deserve one?"

I didn't have an answer for her. How could I say I deserved more than my victims? I knew the excuses Mokuba, and even Yami, would be throwing in my face – I'd been young, I'd been too afraid of what would happen to Mokuba to refuse. I couldn't shrug off my guilt though, even if it was what the two people who mattered most wanted me to do. But Mokuba and Yami would never turn their backs on me. I wasn't going to abandon them, either.

I couldn't tell what I deserved anymore, but I knew what I craved with every fiber of my being. I wanted time. I wanted a life with Mokuba and Yami. I wanted to watch Mokuba grow, I wanted to be his brother even after my mission was done, even after he no longer needed me to protect him. I wanted to hold Yami in my arms as tightly as he'd promised to grip me. I wanted to wake up with him, not once, but every day until it was a familiar wonder, until I got so used to love and friendship and trust that I could say the words in my mind without feeling like someone was poking a barely healed scab. I wanted to go home now that I finally felt like I had a home to go to.

"No!" I yelled as I slammed the syringe down on the table, finally making a move, finally summoning my own Blue Eyes White Dragon to the field.

The room wavered and disappeared. The last thing I saw was the syringe rolling harmlessly across the desk before coming to rest next to the computer monitor.

I was back. I glared at Gozaburo. The son of a bitch had given me a chance to self-destruct and I'd almost taken the bait. Just like always.

Gozaburo didn't notice. He was staring in surprise at my dragon once again. I suddenly realized why. He was waiting for my Crush Card. He'd expected me to cling to the card that most resembled one of his weapons, the card that had symbolized my willingness to inflict pain, my capacity for enjoying it. I kept my face expressionless, just as he'd taught me, even though I wanted to laugh until my legs couldn't hold me up and I sprawled in an undignified heap in front of my own haunted house. Our decks are a reflection of who we are. Gozaburo's was about soulless, mechanized pain, just like his corporation. The only thing I'd brought into this match were my dragons. Punishing as it was, I no longer needed the Crush Card to strengthen my deck – and I hadn't noticed until now.

For once what I needed was time. I played Swords of Revealing Light, conscious of the irony in playing a card I'd always felt stifled by. But I needed to keep my dragons safe until I could assemble my Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon. I was risking everything on the monsters that had always meant my future.

Gozaburo smiled, settling down to assembling his own fusion monster, using a Spell Card to protect his monsters as he raced them to the field. We finished at the same time. Gozaburo's monster was his match. Barbaroid, the Ultimate Battle Machine – even its name reeked of boastful, overblown hype. It was an ugly collection of spare parts and bolts, red as Gozaburo's suit. At 4000 Attack Points, Barbaroid was still weaker than my Ultimate Dragon. But Gozaburo could add and subtract as well as I.

Gozaburo played De-Fusion, separating my Ultimate Dragon back into three Blue Eyes White Dragons. Gozaburo had been the one to teach me that the power of unity was an illusion fit only for suckers who deserved to be crushed underfoot. He'd done his job so thoroughly that even after I'd needed Mokuba's loyalty to win Kaiba Corporation, I'd forgotten our bond before the window Gozaburo had jumped from had been re-glazed. Now Gozaburo could pick my dragons off at his leisure. I should have expected him to pull something like this.

It still hurt to watch the first dragon die.

Gozaburo grinned the smile of a shark scenting blood. "You're finally down to just two dragons. You can't reassemble your ultimate dragon. It was the only thing that could have beaten me. Face it boy, you've lost."

I drew in a breath. I had Pot of Greed and there was still one more dragon out there. But I couldn't force her to serve me. I'd given this particular dragon the ability to abandon me, just like she had in that first penalty game. I owed her that. Yugi's grandfather said I'd finally won her loyalty. I doubted that she agreed. She'd just taunted me and disappeared. Only a fool would count on her return.

But I wanted her to.

There was nothing left but the questions I'd brought in here with me, the ones that had dogged every step of my journey. Was I a fool for thinking I could change, that I could be more than Gozaburo's shadow? Was I strong enough to claim this dragon? How deeply below the surface did the scars go… would they shatter at the first test?

I held my breath as I summoned her. We might have taken the long way home, but it was time to prove that we belonged together; that we had a future. She appeared instantly, glaring at me, stern and distant as a judge. She asked, "What do you deserve?"

I wondered if she'd leave if I gave the wrong answer.

"I don't know. I came into this game searching for a way to destroy my anger, bitterness and hatred, knowing the whole time that they've been branded too deeply into my heart to ever be cut out. But they don't have to run through my system unchecked, destroying everything they touch, strangling my future before it can be born. I tried to destroy you once, out of rage and despair and all the things I'll never be able to erase, no matter how hard I try. But I swear to you: I will use them instead, just as I use everything in me to become a person that has earned the right to call you. I don't know what I deserve anymore. I only know what I need, what I want."

I had no expectations. I'd given up on hope long ago, only to find myself holding my breath as I waited for her response. I wanted Sugoroku to be right about her – and about me. Mokuba, Yami and even Yugi had all stood by me; I wanted to be the person they saw. I wanted her to agree. The seconds crawled by as I waited for her judgment. Finally she inclined her head. She looked vulnerable for the first time, now that her anger was veiled.

I played my final Polymerization card and reformed my ultimate dragon.

"Please…" I said, "…light the way to our future."

"Gladly," she answered. The Ultimate Blue Eyes White Dragon's three heads leaned forward as one. Three mouths opened to release their Neutron Blast.

The end came with surprising swiftness. Barbaroid couldn't put up a fight even though Gozaburo had two more cards left. One was whatever card he'd planned to use against the Crush Card he'd assumed I carried. What was the other?

"Play your final card. You gave up on your life years ago. It's time to end this," I told him.

"This game ends when I say so. As unsatisfying as this existence is, I'm not giving up my chance to take back what was mine," Gozaburo said, playing a Spell Card, Interrupt Time: it allowed him to stop the game. A doorway opened, separating us. "Did you really think I'd stay once the game had turned against me? Then you're still nothing but a soft, naïve child. You haven't won anything," he said. As he stepped through the doorway, it disappeared, tasking Gozaburo to safety with it.

The path in front of me was clear. Gozaburo had cut and run. Again. It was another difference between us. For a genius, it had taken me an awfully long time to understand: no matter how many times I beat him, Gozaburo was never going to admit I'd won. He'd taught me everything I knew about fighting, about never quitting no matter how self-destructive the battle got – but he was never going to live up to his own lessons. And I kept chasing him, falling into the same trap every time it opened before my feet.

I'd left the safe house this morning to confront my adoptive father, to force him to face me. But as Yami had warned, the demons I'd ended up fighting were even more familiar. I'd once believed that victory was binary: you won or you didn't, and then you moved on to the next battle. I'd learned that – like the story of how I ended up designing weapons for Gozaburo in the first place, of how he had bent me to his design, of how I had held some part of myself intact and inviolable – nothing is ever simple, not even winning. Nothing that had happened this morning had been clear or complete, but I was proud that I'd gained a measure of victory in what promised to be an ongoing war. I could live with that. I could live.

I looked at my Blur Eyes Ultimate Dragon. "Thank you," I said.

Three heads nodded in answer. Then the beast shuddered. The cracks across her torso widened. Light spilled out. She had held together long enough to see me on my way, but now she was dissolving. She reached out a paw towards me. Her talons raked my skin gently from shoulder to hip, opening three parallel slashes. I gasped with pain and stared at her, confused.

"Would you have believed I've forgiven you? Would you believe in a future you could come to without pain, without scars?" she asked.

"No."

She shook her head, seeming to radiate with sorrow. "You have a choice. You can heal them – make it like they never happened."

"No. Pretending they never existed isn't healing – it's forgetting. And I want to remember you. I want something I can look at and believe."

"You are as stubborn as a dragon," she said, finally sounding a little bit like Kisara.

I nodded even though she'd disappeared with her parting taunt. I thought of Mokuba walking out of the safe house yesterday without looking back, knowing he was marching into a challenge that could have killed him. I thought of Yami, and even of Yugi. There was something that bound us beyond brotherhood, beyond love, beyond friendship: we all knew how to stand our ground.

I stared at the empty space where she had fallen. Then I heard the cheering. I turned around. Mokuba raced towards me. I braced myself the instant before he plowed into me. He wrapped his arms around my waist. My left arm went automatically around his shoulders. When he lifted his head and looked at me his face was smeared with blood – mine and that of my victims. My right hand reached out to clasp Yami's, as he came up to me.

"How long were you here?" I asked them.

"We saw the whole thing, Nisama," Mokuba said, his voice slightly muffled against my chest.

I eyed Yami and Yugi warily, waiting for another speech on friendship, on how I should have trusted them, on how I should never have walked out of my own self-designed sanctuary on my own looking for trouble.

Yami looked at me. "Some battles are meant to be fought alone. I'm proud of you."

I let out a breath. "I had to know which was more powerful, my past or my future."

Yami grabbed my arm with his other hand and leaned his forehead against it. "You designed a game strong enough to match your heart."

"I always thought the future was something I had to pound into submission, before it could do the same to me. My plans always fell apart, and then I'd wonder if it was because I didn't deserve to win. It never occurred to me that I was fighting the wrong battle; that the truth was much simpler: it's about meeting each challenge as it comes up. I can't beat the future. I can only try to live it."

Mokuba's grip tightened; he was shaking with the force of his sudden sobs.

"I'll never leave you, Nisama! I love you! I'll always love you."

"I know, Mokuba." I stroked his hair with my free hand.

"How could you think I'd abandon you; that I'd walk away like you were nothing just because I grew up?"

"I don't," I said.

"Then why…" Mokuba started.

"Future Visions was showing me all the destinations that I'm afraid my actions have earned. But I'm the one who has to learn that they're not true. You can't do that for me," I told him.

Mokuba looked up at that. His face was still blood-stained. "I'd do anything for you. Just like you did for me. I saw. I know what making those weapons did to you. I've always known…"

I let go of Yami and knelt in front of Mokuba, so we were at eye level. He took one look at my face and his voice trailed off.

"Choosing Gozaburo, designing those weapons, everything that happened afterwards… it was all _my_ choice. You would never have agreed and I never asked you to," I insisted.

Mokuba stared me right in the eye and nodded decisively before allowing his gaze to slide towards the floor, breaking contact a little too quickly. Just like always.

"It was my decision," I repeated.

He started the routine all over again, then stopped in mid-nod and said, "But you would never have done it if it wasn't for me."

"Sure I would have – I just wouldn't have cared. Gozaburo was right about me." Yugi and Mokuba started protesting – only Yami was silent, giving me the time and space to finish my thoughts. I held up my hand. Mokuba and Yugi shut up. I added, "Everything Gozaburo saw in me, all the things that made him pick me as his heir are really and truly a part of me. But Mokuba… you're the reason there's more."

"You're impossible, Nisama! I'm sick of the way everyone thinks I'm the nice brother and you're the creep who doesn't deserve me. But you know what really kills me? That you feel the same."

"You shouldn't, Kaiba. I agree with Mokuba. That was… that was…" Yugi said behind him. He didn't – or couldn't – complete his sentence.

I stood up again and stared at Yugi, unsure what to believe. I'd told him at Alcatraz where his duel disk came from, the roots behind the technology that had created it. He had shuddered back then, barely able to keep from ripping it off his arm, as if my being its creator had tainted its sleek lines. I hadn't needed Jounouchi to remind me that some histories can never be forgotten or forgiven.

Yugi's eyes were wide open with shock and horror, just like they'd been back at Alcatraz; his face had lost its color, but he refused to back away from me. He nodded and held out his hand. I took it, moving on automatic pilot.

"We're friends. I've said that all along. Knowing you better doesn't change that – it makes our friendship stronger. You're not the only one who came into this game with things they needed to learn," Yugi said. His voice was gentle in a way that Yami's rarely was – but it sounded just as firm, just as worthy of my respect.

I looked at the battlefield again. The sun had risen higher while we'd been dueling; it glinted on the grass in front of the safe house. Yami took my hand again. I took a breath, trying to collect my thoughts, trying to decide what we had to do to win this game once and for all so we could go home. I'd thought he was gone for good, but the Wicked Worm Beast appeared in front of me. I groaned. "We don't have time for this shit."

"Obviously we do," Yami said with a smile. "He's going to keep coming back until we figure out why he's here – just like how we kept winding up back on Pegasus' tower."

I managed to keep my face impassive, even as I remembered how that particular scenario had ended.

"So what's Nisama supposed to do, go up and hug it? Try to be friends? It'll kill him – just like it did the last time!" Mokuba broke in.

"We're here now. We won't let that happen," Yami pointed out.

"You're crazy! It's too big a risk," Mokuba said.

The Wicked Worm Beast had stopped. For once he wasn't leaping to attack. He looked as confused as I felt. I scanned through all the times the Wicked Worm Beast had appeared as if I was sorting cards in a deck, seeing all the moments when I doubted that Sugoroku or Yami could care about me even as they were assuring me they did, all the times when I'd doubted – not whether I was going to win – but whether I deserved to, whether I deserved the future I was trying so hard to reach, all the times when I was convinced that the past wasn't just the sum of my experiences but the totality of my nature. The Wicked Worm Beast had been there, following every doubt, stalking every sign of faltering. He'd never been strong enough to kill or even stop me. I thought he'd been pursuing me. Now I realized: I'd been the one hanging on to him all along.

"Yami might be crazy, but he's also right," I said. "It's my future, and I'm not going to spend it dragging a Wicked Work Beast around after me. That's what this game is about, isn't it… letting go of the demons that brought me here? I wasn't ready to do that. It _is_ a risk… trusting that there's more to me than that, even when I have a hard time seeing it." I looked at Yami. "Trusting that there'll be something to replace it."

"No! I'm not going to risk losing you!" Mokuba yelled.

"I have to. I told you, Mokuba – I'm never going to be the kind of person who shies away from taking risks if the prize is worth it, and this one is," I said as gently as I could. "You've followed me through all my wrong turns. You've backed up each disastrous choice. This isn't one of them."

"How do you know?" he asked.

"I don't."

"And you're going to risk your life on a theory?" Mokuba said with a frown.

I laughed. "Always. I could kill him but what would that prove? That I know how to win another meaningless victory?"

Once Yami had trapped me in a playing card. I'd been killed by my own duel monsters. The Wicked Worm Beast had delivered the coup d'grace. But the true jail hadn't been the card that had been stamped with my image, but my own darkness. It had confined me more effectively than any cell. I walked up to the Wicked Worm Beast. Close enough to smell him. Close enough to make strangling me easy. He still stood there waiting, his head tilted to one side, his eyeless sockets fixed on me.

I called in Soul Release; it could remove any card from play, even from the graveyard. She appeared with a whirl of white skirts and green hair, as plaint as ever, as though she practiced yoga in her spare time. I'd always disagreed with Pegasus' rendering. Surely a monster powerful enough to release souls should have more of a backbone.

She stood there, by my side, her green eyes fixed on his face, her head tilted slightly to one side, mirroring the Wicked Worm Beast, waiting for a call that only she could hear. I suspected I was still going to need the Wicked Worm Beast's cooperation for this to work.

"It's one thing to carry my guilt with me. I owe my victims that. But I can't drag them along every step of the way. They deserve better. It's time to let them rest." It was strange the way the Wicked Worm Beast seemed to be listening. "I don't know what you want from me, but you're going to have to find it on your own," I said.

He was my duel monster; he'd been in my deck all along, it had taken me this long to see it. I saw his shoulders relax as if he was laying aside a weight he'd carried all throughout this game; as if he was finally glad to put it aside. He shifted to face Soul Release and bent slightly at the waist in a travesty of a bow. She reached out to him. As her hands met his tentacles they disappeared.

"He's not gone for good. It's not that easy," Yugi said quietly.

I scanned Yugi's face. He looked like he'd gained some experience at refighting battles since we'd come here.

"I know," I answered. "Even the most powerful card gets swept off the field when the match ends – only to reappear just as strong as ever at the start of the next battle. The Wicked Worm Beast will return. The most I can say is that I'll be ready – and that he's not coming back today."

* * *

.

_**Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter, catching all my duel monster mistakes and – as always – video game advice.** _

**Thanks to Splintered Star** for card and dragon conversations.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I've been choosing booster pack and structure deck names for my chapter titles. As a quick glance at the chapter title list will confirm, it's been a hit or miss proposition. But I knew, right from the beginning, that when I finally got up to this chapter it was going to be called "Rise of the Dragon Lord."

When we first meet Kaiba, he's the 16-year old guardian of his younger brother, who has singlehandedly changed Kaiba Corporation from a weapons company to a gaming business. He sounds like he should be the hero – except he's so consumed by his own darkness he needs to be stopped be for he throws it all – and especially his and Mokuba's lives – away.

Gozaburo is a big part of what brought him to that point, so I felt it was important that Kaiba confront Gozaburo here. But along the way I realized that Kaiba had to learn he wasn't Gozaburo on his own, because at the end of the day, Kaiba's future is where he wants it – in his own hands.

**Wicked Worm Beast Note:** I originally picked the Wicked Worm Beast because he was part of the sequence following Kaiba's first penalty game with Yami where he experiences death… and because he's pretty grotesque even for a duel monster. But somehow he managed to wicked worm his way into my affections along the way and he seems kind of cuddly now.

A lot of people have wondered about him and why he kept turning up, so I'd like to know what you thought of the answer.

_Note to unknowntothem:_ Thanks for a review reminded me of how much fun it's been. I left a longer response on my Live Journal account as per FFNet's rules against replying to reviews in stories.

**Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my Live Journal account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated.

_To everyone who's been following this story through all the chapters: Thank you and I'd really like to know what you think. As always, comments are appreciated._

 


	48. Surge of Radiance

**CHAPTER 48: SURGE OF RADIANCE**

_From Aragorn to Henry V, the battle can't be fought until the characters have had their say, until they've reminded their band of brothers that today is not the day for the Age of Men to come crashing down._

_But even the most noble of heroes must finally shut up so that the fighting can begin…_

**KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

Mokuba was still burrowed into my chest, oblivious to the fact that we were both a blood smeared mess. Yami had retained his grip on my arm as though he'd picked this moment to start living up to his promise never to let me go. Yugi was pounding on Yami's other arm as if they were enemies while babbling on about friendship or something. Surprisingly it all felt peaceful, like it was finally quiet enough to think.

"Gozaburo taught me that life was battle. I believe that. But it's also a personal contest or it's meaningless," I said, looking over Mokuba's head at Yami.

"And that was the thing Gozaburo never grasped," Yami agreed.

"He produced and sold weapons that had killed hundreds of thousands. But he acted like because he hadn't pulled the trigger himself, his hands were clean. In a way, he's like Zorc – using Bakura's grief and Akunadin's ambition to do his dirty work for him," I said.

"Just like they've been using this game to try and kill us ever since we got here," Yugi added.

I frowned. "And we've been letting them get away with it. But this is _my_ game. And nothing I designed was ever intended to let someone evade the consequences of their actions, to just sit on the sidelines and get all the benefits as if they'd been here battling it out all along. If they want to go home in our place, they're going to have to step out of the shadows and face us."

Yami grinned. I hadn't realized I'd been waiting for that overconfident smirk until I saw it appear. "Then we know the changes we need to make so we can finally get out of here. It's time to duel four on four – us against them."

"You put in a team versus team mode. We can use that now, especially if we can tie the right to use those pods to being on the winning team," Mokuba said. He let go of me, although he was still close enough for me to rest my hand on his shoulder.

"If you think about it, we've been playing in team mode all along," Yugi said. "And in a way, it makes sense that we need to square off against them to win. Ever since we got here we've been wrestling with our own doubts about who we are – and our fears of what we could become. When you look at our opponents… Gozaburo, Zorc, Akunadin… even Bakura… they're like us – or rather, they're all the things were afraid of being."

After my battle with Gozaburo and all Yugi had seen of my past designing weapons, I certainly wasn't going to argue the point.

"Huh? Are you crazy? They're nothing like us!" Mokuba yelled.

I wasn't about to tell Mokuba that he was wrong in public, even in front of Yami and Yugi, so I was glad when Yami spoke up. "When I first emerged from the Puzzle, everything was good or evil – and there was nothing in-between." Yami shook his head. "But I was wrong. What Akunadin did was horrific. But he is still a man, not a monster – and one who deeply regrets his actions, even though they're irrevocable."

"That's different!" Mokuba protested.

"And as utterly corrupt as Zorc and Gozaburo are, I can't deny that they echo the darkest parts of our own souls. When I think of Zorc, I see power gone wild, without mercy or even humanity to temper his cruelty." Yami winced and I knew he was thinking of how he'd been when he'd first arrived in Domino.

"Bakura has a right to chase justice, even if he's aimed at the wrong target." I said.

Mokuba scrunched his face up, like he always did when he was trying to figure something out. "Bakura was such a weirdo. I didn't get him at all. But you like him, don't you?" Mokuba asked, looking up at me.

I wasn't sure how to answer. I guess I did in a way. "I respect his determination and resourcefulness," I said.

"He can't be that alien to you, even if he is on the opposite side," Yugi told Mokuba. "He's someone who's willing to kill for his family without stopping to realize that even the best reasons can't make doing the wrong thing, right. That has to sound familiar."

I glared at Yugi. None of that was Mokuba's fault. I was about to defend my brother, but Mokuba was nodding. He wasn't upset. His head was up and his back was straight. I remembered Yami telling me that Mokuba wanted to take responsibility for his actions. I couldn't deny him that right.

"When you put it like that, yeah, it hits way too close to home. I can't speak for Bakura, but for me: I'm always going to stand by my brother, but you don't have to worry. I'm never going to be like that again," Mokuba said in a rush, like he'd been waiting for a while to get the words out.

"Neither of us are. I promise," I said, stroking the top of his head briefly before returning my hand to his shoulder.

He gave me a quick hug. "I know," he said.

I braced myself since Yami and Yugi seemed to be on a roll and I was the only one left, but Yugi only smiled at me and shrugged.

I said it for him. "I've spent this whole game… Hell, I've spent my life fighting Gozaburo because every time I looked at him I saw myself – someone who was taking his own losses out on everyone else, or worse not seeing anything but his goals."

Mokuba might have been ready to own up to his own faults. Predictably he wasn't going to agree with mine. "You were pretty quick to look over at my brother. What about you?" he demanded, turning to Yugi.

"I didn't meet Akunadin, but from what I heard, he's someone who set things in motion and then walked away like keeping his eyes closed meant he was innocent. All it meant was that he was too cowardly to face what he'd done," Yugi said. "I wasn't leaving myself out. I knew something weird was going on. But even after I met Yami, even after I trusted him, I never asked. I've been facing that all game. And like you, I'm never turning my back again."

Yami's lips tightened as he fought to keep himself from protesting. He came through, though. He let Yugi take responsibility without trying to shift the blame to his own shoulders.

"It's not easy, is it?" I squeezed his hand. He gripped mine a little tighter in return.

"Every flaw we've battled within ourselves will be there staring at us out of our enemies' eyes," Yami said.

"The difference is, we don't have to become them. We know that for sure. That's why we're going to win," Yugi said. "I don't think we were ready to take them on before. We are now."

"So what's our next move?" Mokuba asked. He was looking at me, but Yami answered first.

"Technology and ancient magic came together to create this world. We're going to harness those same forces to make this a true penalty game, one that binds all of us. They were the ones to try and bring shadow magic into this world. But they forgot that the Millennium Items speak to the heart. You can't stand back when your soul is in the balance," Yami said.

"It's the kind of extreme challenge I've been looking for my whole life," I said, grinning at Yami, knowing he'd remember those had been my words to him the first time we'd ever squared off with life or death on the line.

"The extreme challenge is the one that starts _after_ we get home. Never forget that," he said, speaking as sternly as he had all those times he'd reminded me of how I'd disappointed him. I was about to step back, but he refused to let go of my hand. "I'm looking forward to it," he added.

I nodded, trying to remember not to jump to conclusions – especially bitter ones, especially about Yami – quite so often.

It was time to get to work. "Unhide codes," I called out, and settled down to scanning. Mokuba was reading the commands at my side, just like I'd planned from the beginning.

"It may have taken a while, but we're going to finish this game together," I told him.

He smiled up at me. I could feel things settling back to normal, as if Mokuba's trust was a trenchcoat I could throw over my shoulders.

It was going to take every permission I'd saved up from all our challenges to alter the game. I activated the team mode then locked it in as the default setting. Mokuba pointed to a cluster of coded lines. "It looks like you set up a pathway so that teams could issue challenges and set the stakes for each match?"

I nodded. That would come in handy now. I just needed to add commands to ensure that one challenge had to be completed before either party could issue another.

"You didn't want to put in a team mode at all, except so that you could play with me," Mokuba said.

"That's why I never completed the coding for it. I only put the feature in when I decided that the game had commercial possibilities. Just because it's not my preferred mode doesn't mean I'm blind to the fact other people like it. Besides, in another couple of years I'm betting schools will have duel monsters teams, just like they do for soccer or baseball – or chess. This way eventually schools could hold practices and team matches at Kaiba Land."

"And a few years after that there might even be dueling schools!" Mokuba said excitedly.

I smiled at his enthusiasm even though it seemed like a farfetched idea to me.

"I wish we had one right now! Jounouchi would be a star pupil!" Yugi said.

"That's the best argument I've heard against it. Who wants to spend their time teaching mediocrities to duel?" I snorted and got back to work, ignoring Yugi and Yami's predictable protests; the only thing that remained was to establish stakes and tie the permission to use the VR pods to return to our world to winning.

"Wait!" Yugi called out. "Before you make the final changes, let's tell the others that we'll be home soon!"

I was going to roll my eyes, when it occurred to me: Yugi probably wanted to talk to his friends again just in case things went bad. Giving Isono and Fubeta a heads up so they would be prepared if anyone but us stepped out of those pods made sense as well… and I wouldn't mind seeing Sugoroku.

I'd put summoning runes near each safe house. It didn't take long to find them. I was beginning to wonder if Yugi's friends were living in my computer lab because they all showed up on cue, landing almost on top of Yugi. Yami finally released my hand as they swarmed around him and Mokuba. I stepped out of range and watched. My clothes had repaired themselves, but between the dragon slashes and borrowed blood, I was under no illusions what I looked like.

Sugoroku arrived a moment after the others. I didn't approach him. He leapt into the center of the mix swirling around Yugi and hugged his grandson. I waited while Yugi stumbled through the explanations. The gang chimed in with their own questions and cheers, crowding even closer. Sugoroku released Yugi and looked at me. I gave him a thumbs-up sign. He came over.

"I heard you leave the safe house this morning. Who did you fight?" he asked.

"Gozaburo… and myself."

He looked me up and down, taking in every nick and scrape.

"You always have to do everything in the most difficult way possible, don't you?" he asked, shaking his head at me.

"No, just everything worthwhile." I shrugged. It was the way I'd designed the game to work after all.

"You're wrong. But this isn't the time to scold. I'm just glad you're here… that you're going to get the chance to grow up and learn better."

"You keep hoping, old man," I laughed.

"I will," he said, smiling.

"Let Isono and Fubeta know we're heading into the final showdown with Gozaburo and his associates. They need to be prepared. Only one team is coming out alive," I told him.

Sugoroku looked at Yugi. It was pure instinct. I pretended I hadn't seen the flash of fear in his eyes. "I will," he said, again. This time he was all business.

"I told you once. I promise to see that Yugi…" I started to say.

He interrupted before I could finish the sentence. "Just take care of each other – and yourselves. That's the only promise I want."

Jounouchi interrupted whatever he was saying to Yugi to look at me and say, "What the hell happened to you? You get mauled by a dragon or something?"

I threw back my head and laughed. "Yes," I answered.

Jounouchi frowned. "Seriously dude, you look like shit. Don't you have any of that healing potion stuff left?"

The cuts left by my dragon had stopped bleeding. As I'd told her, I had no intention of erasing them.

"I'll be fine."

"Whatever you say, macho man. Let me put it in a way you can understand. Just make sure you don't slow down Yami and Yugi when you fall over."

The words were as mocking as ever. The tone had changed. I'd have to file it way to think about later.

Jounouchi turned back to Yugi and Yami, giving them more unneeded dueling advice. Anzu was still holding Yugi's hand. Honda was slightly in the background as usual, standing next to Mokuba. The conversation finally died out but no one made a move to leave. Luckily the time that NPCs could stay was limited. Sugoroku slapped my arm before reaching Yugi for a final hug. Then they were gone.

"We have a game to play," Yami said.

We discussed the stakes, making them as airtight as possible. I winced as I coded the last change. After finally rejecting my adoptive father's teachings, I seemed to have come full circle. The winners would get life. The losers would get – if not death, something possibly worse – an eternity sealed inside of the Puzzle that Yami had just escaped from. A Puzzle that would be scattered and left here – isolating the losers when the end of the game closed this world off from ours. We were going to use the magic I'd fought against believing in to make – as the hieroglyphics inserted into my game insisted – everything that happened here real.

"How long will it take them to find out what we've done?" Yugi asked.

"You can send in-game messages from one team to another. I just activated that feature as well. As soon as we pick our monsters, I'll notify them."

We looked at the cards Pegasus had designed. Pegasus had said he'd created them with us in mind. I was skeptical – he'd drawn them before this all had started. Yami had already claimed Phoenix Reborn. My Blue Eyes White Dragons were gone for the rest of this game beyond recall. I studied Shimmer Dragon. Its description was still blank – just like for the other three monsters Pegasus had uploaded.

"We still don't know what they do," I pointed out.

"There's only one way to find out… by using them in battle," Yami said. "I wasn't thinking about strategy or weighing the odds when I called on Phoenix Reborn for the first time. I was dying. I was desperate. Somehow, I knew that it was the only thing that could save me. And it did."

"Maybe part of the challenge is picking the right card and then trusting that it will come through for us at the right time, knowing that it's a part of us – even if we don't understand how or why," Yugi said.

I winced. I wanted to snarl at Yugi for putting things in the most illogical way possible, for expecting, yet again, a show of blind faith. But he was asking for something I'd always done: trusting myself and my monsters to see me through every trial.

I'd spent hours engraving each of Shimmer Dragon's scales, polishing them until she lived up to her name, shining like a second, colder sun. I'd ached to add her to my deck the whole time, even though I'd thought her too soft and too untested. Now I could see that the titanium in her hide reached down into her core.

I'd always thought that caring, that trusting would weaken me, like rust eating its way through a baser metal. But if that was still true, if nothing had changed, then this duel was over before it had begun. Instead I would hold to my faith that even as I changed, I remained Seto Kaiba, that like my newest dragon, my metal ran as deep.

I nodded to Yugi and added Shimmer Dragon to my deck.

Yugi reached for Light of Hope, Light of Truth. "It's everything I believe in, everything I want to carry with me – not just into battle and but back home again, afterwards."

Mokuba stared at Fledgling Grace.

"Are you guys kidding? You all get cool cards and I get a baby horse with wings? He can't even walk properly, yet," Mokuba grumbled.

It was true. Every now and then he wobbled on his feet, his golden wings flapping against his caramel-colored coat as he tried to keep his balance. I couldn't help but laugh. Mokuba turned and glared at me. He'd never done that before.

"He's like you when you were learning to walk," I said. "I'd forgotten that until we came here."

"You're saying that I remind you of a _horse_?" Mokuba asked, incredulously.

"Turn on the demo feature. Just watch him in action," I said.

Mokuba grumbled as the horse batted its wings, trying to get off the ground. Then Dark Simorgh, a huge, armored carrion crow, its belly still bloated from its latest kill, appeared in the air above my Shimmer Dragon. It got ready to dive for the kill. My dragon could take it, but Fledgling Grace didn't wait. Instantly, the winged horse was in the air, scything through it on razor-sharp hooves, ducking in an out of Dark Simorgh's talons as it slashed him to pieces.

"He's fast, determined and resourceful – and he'll cut anyone who dares to underestimate him down to size. Yes, he reminds me of you," I said.

Fledgling Grace landed next to Mokuba and butted him in the chest. He stamped the ground, shook his long, black mane out of his eyes and glared at my brother.

Mokuba glared back. Then suddenly he laughed. "You don't like getting treated like a kid, either – do you? We'll show them together."

It didn't take long for Gozaburo and his playmates to arrive. Noa had described Zorc. I'd heard about the weird snake poking out from his loincloth and all the rest of the grotesque details. I still hadn't expected anything that big, that purple – or that ugly.

I had to laugh when Yami started repeating the stakes, totally unfazed by the giant monster in front of us. "I take it our terms are acceptable – once you agree they will be binding on all of us," Yami announced to end his speech.

They nodded. I expected a blinding flash of light or a chorus of angels or something equally dramatic. Instead, all that happened was my messaging system worked as expected, letting us know a challenge had been accepted and that the terms were final.

"So, you want to beat me so badly you're willing to stay locked in a Puzzle forever on a fool's chance of making that happen," Gozaburo said.

As usual he'd misjudged me. This wasn't about beating Gozaburo. It was about having to quarantine this world before it could infect ours. It was about wanting to go home now that I was ready to live. I said the one thing I knew Gozaburo would never understand.

"Actions have consequences; I'm willing to live up to mine. I have a responsibility."

I studied the rest of his team, stopping when I got to Bakura. I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've felt anything but hatred and contempt for an opponent. But as Bakura had said last night, he had a right to his answers. And even in the cold light of day, even away from our twilight confidences, I felt some sympathy for him; I couldn't imagine living without Mokuba – or leaving his death unavenged.

I nodded to Bakura. He didn't return the gesture. He was too busy staring at Yami, his eyes glittering at the sight of his prey. Whatever doubts he'd had were gone. He transferred his glare to me. I wasn't surprised he resented me. After all, when I'd first met Yami, I'd been ready to kill him for exposing the all weaknesses, all the anger and bitterness I'd been clinging to as though they were my strengths.

"It's hard watching someone run from one disastrous decision into another, isn't it?" Yami asked. He wasn't smirking; he was too intent on the quartet in facing us, but there was a familiar note of mockery in his voice.

"I told you once that what was in the heart of man could surpass even God. I still believe that," I said.

"Even about someone who's surrendered to his own darkness?" Yami asked.

"Especially then," I answered.

Yami smiled. He reached up to touch my shoulder briefly before letting his hand trail down my back.

"I agree," he said.

I was still slightly stunned at how powerful Yami's simplest gestures could be.

Like Yami, my eyes had never left the group in front of us for more than the second or two that it took to glance at him or Mokuba. I might have been slow to pick up on this whole power of unity thing, but I got how divisions weaken a team. It was the main reason I'd always preferred to rely on myself.

I remembered when we'd faced off against Lumos and Umbra in Battle City. Yami had never figured out how I knew just what to say to set them at each other's throats. Of course I had. I'd grown up in the same shark tank. I looked at Zorc, towering over Gozaburo. The size difference had to rankle.

"You look like such a candy ass next to him," I sneered.

Gozaburo stiffened. "When I get through with you…"

"Are you sure you don't have to ask Big Daddy over there for permission, first?" I grinned.

Zorc's lip curled in amusement. This was like shooting fish in a barrel. "You do realize that I've beaten Gozaburo repeatedly. Picking a loser like him doesn't say much for your judgment either," I told Zorc.

"How dare you question my choice of tools!" Zorc yelled.

Gozaburo stiffened in outrage. Good. It was a toss-up who he'd choose to stab in the back first – us or his partner.

Bakura had been staring at Yami, ignoring everything else.

"I'll finally have my revenge. I can go to my family knowing I've gotten them justice," he said.

"You can't still believe that Yami hurt them," Yugi shouted.

"If Yugi's expecting that nutjob to be reasonable, he's due for a disappointment," Mokuba muttered.

"I doubt he acted alone," Gozaburo said, staring at me.

I grinned. He was so predictable.

Bakura looked from me to Yami, noting how closely we were standing together. He laughed. "As much as you deny your past, priest – you're repeating it." He turned back to Gozaburo. "Don't worry, his death is next… or maybe first, so the pharaoh can suffer more."

"No! Seto is innocent!" Akunadin yelled.

Everyone turned to stare at him. Even his teammates had forgotten he was there. He was that easy to overlook.

"Why's he talking like he knows you? What's going on? " Mokuba said.

"He's just some old fart that thinks I want or need his help. Ignore him," I answered. The novelty of having someone declare my innocence was considerably less than my annoyance that Akunadin presumed he knew anything about me at all. Yami sighed loudly at my side.

"When's the duel going to start?" Mokuba asked.

"It already has," I answered.

"Akunadin," Zorc said. It wasn't a name. It was an order; one that the old priest ignored.

Akunadin made his next move as if Zorc hadn't spoken. "You've been searching for the destroyer of Kul Elna for millennia… and I've been under your nose the whole time," he told Bakura.

"I don't believe you! I've hunted the pharaoh across the ages! You're not worthy of being their killers!" Bakura yelled.

"You came here for the truth. It's time for you to face it, even if you didn't get the answer you wanted. You've hurt enough people in your senseless quest for revenge," Yami said. His flashes of gentleness had become disconcertingly familiar, but it was the way he refused to give any quarter, his uncompromising toughness, that resonated most deeply.

"And I should believe you because a pharaoh is too noble to lie?" Bakura asked sarcastically. "Everyone does."

"Truth," Yugi mumbled. I would have thought it was a random utterance, even for Yugi, but he drew the card Pegasus claimed that he had designed with Yugi in mind: Light of Truth, Light of Hope. "You believe what the cards show, don't you? It's why you're here."

A soft light, far too delicate and diffuse for a dueling field shone down, highlighting Bakura. He looked at the card title and snapped, "I don't need hope. Truth will suffice." He turned to Yami and added, "And no matter what you think, I'm ready to face it. I've faced worse than you can imagine in your privileged ignorance."

At Bakura's words, the light changed, it flickered red and orange as an ancient village sprang up around him. The light turned to fire. We watched as soldiers rode through the town, killing everyone the flames had spared; leaving the bodies to burn. There was no mistaking the man ordering the attack. He was younger and both of his eyes – as deep a blue as my own – were intact. It was Akunadin.

"I wish I could answer to Osiris for my misdeeds, but I will never be judged. I sold my soul to Zorc. I thought escaping death would be a paradise; not realizing hell is wherever the damned reside. If I can't answer to the gods; it's fitting I do so to the lone survivor of Kul Elna," Akunadin said.

"Why did they die?" Bakura asked huskily, as if the words had gotten stuck in his throat.

"I wanted my son to become pharaoh. I wanted my line to rule for all eternity. I was blinded by greed. The gold for the Millennium Items could only come from the ashes of the damned," Akunadin said.

"They were damned only because your soldiers burned them alive!" Bakura yelled. "My family lived in that village. My family died in that village!"

"None of us were left untainted. With one decision, I damned myself, my son and even you – the last survivor of that place. You were the child of thieves but you understood something I never did: family matters. I turned my back on mine, you followed yours through the millennia."

"How dare you try to offer me apologies. I want nothing from you but your death!" Bakura turned to Zorc. "You've known for 3,000 years. Has it amused you?"

"It was easier to leave you ignorant," Zorc said.

"He's a god of evil – and Bakura's surprised he'd play him? What kind of bad guy would he be if he did anything else?" Mokuba muttered at my side.

I would have agreed, but I remembered how surprised I'd been when I'd found out that Gozaburo had used my designs, that he'd sold my soul to the military. And yet, I'd known who Gozaburo was as well as Bakura must have known Zorc.

"You couldn't stand the thought of being alone ever again. You tied yourself as tightly as you could to someone who would never disappear, who would never die. I obliged," Zorc said, turning away as if the conversation had already started to bore him.

For 3,000 years, Bakura's ally had been the man who'd murdered his family. Zorc no longer seemed like a joke or a cartoon villain. If there was a definition of evil, this was it. My adoptive father had finally found a partner that matched him.

"I wanted my family! I've served you well for years without payment. Now it finally falls due and I claim the wages I've earned. I sold myself to you to avenge my family, to comfort them wherever their souls wander, to give them a measure of rest, to be able to join them unashamed," Bakura replied as he summoned his monster. "Diabound, my faithful companion… I've waited 3,000 years to call you to me once more. Rip my enemy to shreds. Do it slowly."

For the first time since they'd arrived, I blinked in surprise. Although Diabound was smaller and far more graceful, its resemblance to Zorc was unmistakable. Diabound hung in the air for a second, supported by two enormous wings springing from a humanoid back. A pair of smaller ones at its hips seemed to help it remain seemingly motionless. Its helmeted head leaned forward as Diabound prepared to lunge after its prey. But before the beast could leap forward golden cords bound both Bakura and his monster.

"Hey! What gives? Zorc played Swords of Revealing Light against his own partner!" Mokuba yelled.

I nodded. I'd set up a team mode, but I hadn't believed in it. I'd left each player free to stab his partners in the back whenever the mood struck him. But something had changed since I'd designed this world. Once I would have gloated at how quickly my expectations had proved right. Now, while I knew and accepted that betrayal was part of how the world – any world – operated, I wanted to believe there was more.

"Do you think I would allow you to take your revenge at a time that was not of my choosing? I own you, thief," Zorc said, his voice completely devoid of any emotion, even anger.

"God or not… you will honor our bargain!" Bakura yelled.

"Eventually. When I decide that it's convenient," Zorc said.

"How will you rejoin your family when you have bound yourself to eternal servitude to Zorc?" Akunadin asked.

I frowned. I knew the way contracts worked and there was a flaw a mile wide in this one.

"How can your contract to Zorc be complete while I still stand; while Zorc is the one preventing you from killing me?" Akunadin added, as if he worked in some kind of supernatural legal department.

"I hold your soul, priest. Utter one more word and die." Zorc said. It wasn't a threat; it was a certainty.

Akunadin smiled. "Then I have two words: thank you. I have been waiting to atone for a very long time." He huddled into himself, grasping at his chest. He turned to me. "I'm glad I got to see you one more time, to finally act as a father should."

There was no point in arguing I wasn't his son; I doubted he could hear me. His body was shaking, was wracked by shudders as if it would tear itself apart. It didn't. Instead he shriveled as all moisture left his body, mummifying him instantly. I had no problem continuing our interrupted duel with a desiccated corpse as an audience and Mokuba was already taking notes, probably planning how to badger me into adding this scene into our next game design. Before Mokuba could start his campaign, Akunadin turned to dust as if every year of the 3,000 he'd spent following Zorc had finally come to claim him.

With Akunadin's death, the cords binding Bakura – and his monster – dissolved. Almost unnoticed, Zorc played Reclamation. Akunadin's remaining monsters were now part of his arsenal. So Zorc had come into this game intending to betray and loot his comrades. A worthy foe, indeed.

"How dare you take my revenge from me?" Bakura yelled.

"Do you think I reward disobedience?" Zorc asked.

"And do you think I'll tamely accept betrayal and carry on as though nothing has happened? My Diabound is free – and as you have denied me the revenge you promised, so am I!"

"You dare to threaten me? Pathetic mortal. I have a present to you from the old priest. For all his bleating of atonement, look at the card he held closest to his heart…" Zorc played Torrential Fire. The flames from Kul Elna had faded into the background once their part in bringing the truth to light was over. Now rekindled by Torrential Fire, they raced towards Bakura. "You will never rejoin your family. You will die here in this strange world and turn to ash."

Diabound didn't wait for a command. He swooped forward to protect his master. For a moment it seemed that he would be able to fight the flames off as you would another monster, but even his power – or Bakura's hatred – wasn't enough. In the end, the fire swallowed him whole.

"Fire is death," Zorc said.

"Fire is also life. Bakura was my enemy, but he doesn't deserve this end, not while I can prevent it," Yami said as he summoned Phoenix Reborn.

The giant bird leapt into the flames, became one with them, and then rose into the air, singing. It absorbed the fire, growing with each red-orange lick of flame that leapt up to join it, until its outstretched wings surrounded Bakura, almost hiding him from our sight. Bakura's laugh rang out above the roar of the flames. For once, it wasn't gloating or maniacal.

At that gleeful sound, a memory of my own surfaced. It wasn't about war or destruction. I remembered playing in front of my house and looking up to see my mother framed in the doorway, one hand on the belly that carried Mokuba.

My brother's hand stole into mine. "Remember the time I tried to walk home from the orphanage and you came and found me?" Mokuba said.

I nodded and ruffled his hair. I glanced at Yami. He was staring straight ahead, smiling slightly. "So that's what my mother looked like. I'm glad I got to see her," he whispered.

I looked back at Bakura. The flames had reached him, but instead of devouring him whole as they had done with his monster, they had melted into the Phoenix Reborn's sheltering wings. Now, the fire that Zorc had sent to destroy Bakura was protecting him from his former master. A light streamed down on Bakura and I realized with a start that Light of Truth, Light of Hope was still in play.

"I'd forgotten it was there," I mumbled.

"Luckily, hope hangs around anyway, even when no one believes in it," Yugi said.

I had to hand it to Pegasus. The card matched its owner. I wondered why the kind of decency Yugi went in for was somehow less memorable than treachery.

We gasped as a man, a woman and two children, the smallest just a toddler, appeared at the edge of the circle of light, almost touching the phoenix's wings. Ever since I'd met him, Bakura had been angry, vengeful and haunted. None of that was evident now as he stood there, paralyzed, staring at the shadowy forms of his family for the time in millennia. As we watched, they became solid; we could no longer see the echoes of the flames through their bodies. When the little boy hopped from one foot to the other, he left footprints in the dirt at his feet.

Bakura stared at them, frozen in place for a moment longer. Finally, he took a hesitant step forward, followed by another. Then he shot forward and ran to them, his laughter rekindling to match theirs. He reached the boy and swung him high above his head. Bakura set his brother back down as he was claimed by the rest of his family. The little girl marched over to him with all the seriousness of a two year old and hugged his leg. Bakura reached down with one arm to hoist her to his chest. His other hand clutched his brother's shoulder. His mother reached up to fluff his hair; we could hear her sobbing with joy, shaking as she leaned against him. Bakura's father was pounded his back and shouted. They were solid enough for Bakura to hold on to – and to tighten their grip on him.

The phoenix's wings closed protectively around the little group. When they opened, Bakura and his family were gone. Only the fire remained.

The phoenix had brought Yami back to us, back to a new home in Domino when we returned. I couldn't help wishing it had also carried Bakura safely back to an older one.

I wasn't about to say anything so fanciful – not to mention so totally sappy – so I was glad when Yugi asked, "Do you think…"

"That the phoenix's song has carried Bakura back to his family? Your card is still on the field; it's still named Light of Hope," Yami said.

"And as those hieroglyphics keep reminding us ad nauseum, all that happens here becomes real," I added.

* * *

.

**_Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter._ **

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** It was hard to write this chapter partly because I hate the thought of disappointing people and partly because part of me wants Bakura to forget the whole revenge thing and open a bakery with Ryou Bakura – because let's face it, who deserves a life surrounded by pastries and cheesecakes more than those two? The problem is that I can't convince myself that that's what (Thief King) Bakura wants.

In this story he's been chasing after three things: acknowledgement that what was done to his family was wrong, tracking down and killing their murderer, and finally rejoining them. He didn't quite manage to get vengeance with his own hands, but I'm hoping that, like the Meatloaf song, he decides that two out of three ain't bad.

The title of my story is Giving Up the Ghosts, but along the way, I ran across a couple of characters, like Pegasus and Bakura, who decided they'd rather embrace them instead.

**_Note to MikaSamu and unknowntothem:_** I left responses on my Live Journal account as per FFNet's rules against replying to reviews in stories.

**Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my Live Journal account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated.

_To everyone who's been following this story through all the chapters: Thank you and I'd really like to know what you think. As always, comments are appreciated._


	49. Warrior's Triumph

**CHAPTER 49: WARRIOR'S TRIUMPH**

_Whether it's Dorothy and her motley crew approaching a witch's castle or the Rebel Alliance lining up to take their shot at the Evil Empire, there's always a moment when the heroes have to show how they've grown, what they've gained, and who they've become._

_Which leads to a question that smacks more of kindergarten than of other worlds and galaxies far, far away as each hero has to ask themselves: "What have I learned today?"_

**YAMI'S NARRATIVE**

Phoenix Reborn had protected Bakura and his family, had hopefully brought them safely home. But Torrential Fire was still on the field, barely held in check by the disappearance of its prey. With a wave of Zorc's hand, it regrouped and started towards us, growing as it approached. Almost unnoticed, Gozaburo used the card, Reclamation, to scoop up the rest of Bakura's monsters.

I turned to Kaiba. "This is where we find out what Pegasus' cards can do. They were designed with each of us in mind."

"Then Shimmer Dragon should be about anger and hate; she should be able to fight fire with fire – it's what I do best." Kaiba shook his head. "But she's too airborne and light for that."

"Stop it! There's more to you than bitterness, rage and senseless destruction. Look deeper until you find it." I was conscious of the irony of ordering Kaiba to think more highly of himself, but Mokuba grinned and gave me a thumbs up sign.

Kaiba shook his head again. "Then there's one other possible answer… and the only way to test it out is in battle." He summoned Shimmer Dragon to meet the oncoming flames.

Shimmer Dragon soared above us, her wings stretched to their full length, the glittering scales looking far too fragile to withstand Torrential Fire's attack. At the last moment the dragon turned and set herself in the ground, facing us now. I blinked, unused to seeing one of Kaiba's monsters in defense mode.

Shimmer Dragon's back and still outstretched wings formed a barrier; she was protecting us from the oncoming fire by taking the brunt of the attack itself. I refused to look away as the fire pummeled her; I expected her to be consumed as Diabound had been. Instead the fire was flung backward, only to regroup and race towards us, even faster. The flames rolled over Shimmer Dragon like a wave, while we stayed protected by her body. They crashed to earth far beyond us and rolled unchecked until they disappeared in the distance.

I took a step forward and stopped, staring in shocked respect at the price of Shimmer Dragon's victory. The delicate pattern that Kaiba had painstakingly etched into each scale was charcoal dark now, barely visible against her scorched hide.

"Nisama!" Mokuba yelled. I turned back to Kaiba and gasped. His coat hung in charred tatters from his shoulders, exposing his scars – new and old –half hidden now under a mass of blisters and scorched skin. Pegasus had indeed designed the card with Kaiba in mind. He could use Shimmer Dragon to defend us but only if he was willing – and Kaiba always was – to take the pain of each encounter onto himself.

Kaiba's supply of healing potion was long gone, I called in my own, but waited a moment before approaching him; Kaiba was focused solely on Zorc.

"If you're trying to break me, you're going to have to do a better job of it." Kaiba's voice was as steady and as hard as his dragon's scales. He turned to me. "You're right – there's more to Shimmer Dragon than anger. There's endurance, the simple ability to keep standing long after you should have fallen."

As I smiled at Kaiba, I caught a glimpse of Gozaburo, and was surprised at the proud look that flickered across his face and disappeared. "I taught you that," he said.

"You bastard," Mokuba muttered.

Kaiba's lips twitched. "You did. It's come in useful when fighting monsters – in whatever form they take."

Gozaburo's eyes glinted. His whole face took on an expression of sadistic glee. I was sorry Kaiba had missed that brief glance of approval only to catch this look instead.

"Do you remember the first time I beat you… how the riding crop bit into your shoulders… how you stared at me in disbelief?"

Kaiba nodded. "I threw up. It was from shock as much as anything."

"You stood there, blood running down your back, vomit staining your clothes, and looked up at me, wondering what you'd done wrong. You didn't ask any questions. You didn't ask why – not then or in any of the times that followed. Were you afraid to?"

When Kaiba didn't answer, Gozaburo added, "Or did you figure it out on your own?"

Kaiba nodded again. "You did it because you could."

"That's power, boy," Gozaburo said as if this was some schoolroom lesson he was still trying to teach.

"Yes. But it's power without self-control. I've walked down that road; I've seen where it ends. And it's not what I want for me or for Mokuba," Kaiba answered.

Kaiba nodded to me, finally allowing me to approach as he slowly, painfully shrugged out of the remnants of his coat and let me apply the potion I'd called in. I tried not to think about how little was left, tried to concentrate instead on the burns that were disappearing under my touch, on the way his dragon healed in sync with its master. Kaiba stopped me when I came too near the grooves his Blue Eyes White Dragon had etched into his skin that morning. I worked around them as best I could.

Gozaburo snorted in contempt. Kaiba met and held his gaze. "You taught me to endure. But there's another lesson, equally important, that I need to master as well, one that you can't teach. I have to learn… I have to accept that there's a difference between weakness and healing."

"Only if you have time to heal at all," Gozaburo snapped as he summoned Shared Burden. We watched as a cadre of medieval soldiers captured two of Zorc's monsters, bound them, and carried them back to Gozaburo.

"Having you around finally came in handy," Gozaburo sneered at Zorc. "I need four sacrifices. Two of them might as well be yours, partner."

I knew then: Gozaburo was trying to call up a God Card. Kaiba had brought the God Cards into his virtual world, but he'd increased the cost of summoning them. A player would have to discard four of the seven cards he carried into each challenge, and he could summon only one God Card per game. When he'd designed this world, Kaiba had also decided that since each player could carry only seven cards into battle, it was up to them to decide how many they wanted to throw onto the field at once. Given how often our opponents (or the game itself) had tried to drown us in a flood of monsters, I wondered if Kaiba was regretting that decision - or if he was happiest when facing all his foes at once.

"Did you think I would let a mere mortal take what was mine?" Zorc asked as he played Poisoned Fruit. A tree grew to enormous height in front of us. Its tortured limbs seemed to catch and strangle the light around it, until looking at it was like staring into an abyss, or into the face of death itself. As we watched, a single pomegranate shaped fruit ripened and then rotted on the branch. It fell, splitting open as it hit the ground, releasing its deadly spores. They attacked not just Zorc's coopted monsters, but Gozaburo's two sacrifices as well, leaving the field in front of Gozaburo momentarily empty.

"What the hell? First Gozaburo swipes two of Zorc's monsters and now Zorc used one of his remaining cards to get revenge? They're on the same team! They're just throwing their cards away for no reason!" Yugi said.

"It's for a reason all right. They each brought a deadly enemy into this contest with them. Beating each other is just as important as defeating us," Kaiba answered grimly.

Gozaburo ignored Zorc. Maybe he was so used to both sides of betrayal that it didn't even register. He played Pot of Greed to assemble two more monsters, then summoned another two, sacrificing them before we could even be sure what they were: the monsters he was relying on for his victory were that inconsequential to him. That attitude had once been Kaiba's as well.

Gozaburo's plan worked. He'd summoned God to do his bidding. Obelisk the Tormentor towered above us all, even Zorc. I remembered Kaiba laughing as he played Obelisk at Battle City, drunk on the power of the card.

"Do you remember throwing Obelisk away for your dragon? Prepare to face Obelisk the Tormentor in battle. It'll give you a chance to regret turning your back on the power of a god before he kills you," Gozaburo said.

"I don't need God," Kaiba replied.

Gozaburo grinned, his eyes alight with anticipation as Obelisk attacked Shimmer Dragon with sledgehammer brutality. Shimmer Dragon disappeared for a moment beneath a rock-hard whirlwind, lost in a blur of pounding fists and stamping feet. Kaiba's dragon fell to the ground, unable to withstand Obelisk's onslaught. A shockwave from the final blow knocked Kaiba to his knees.

"Who's kneeling before God, now?" Gozaburo taunted as another blow to Shimmer Dragon dropped Kaiba face down in the dirt.

Both Kaiba and his dragon struggled to their feet. A trickle of blood seeped out of the corner of Shimmer Dragon's snout. I wondered if it signaled internal injuries. Kaiba grinned at me; a froth of blood stained his teeth as well. I ran to him, healing potion already in my hands. He coughed, spitting up more blood as I rubbed it on his chest, still careful to avoid the marks left by his Blue Eyes White Dragon in their earlier encounter. I trusted the potion's power to heal (as Kaiba had boasted) any injury not immediately fatal. Predictably, Kaiba looked to his dragon, relaxing only as he realized that she was healing in sync with him.

Kaiba nodded to me as I finished, then licked the blood from his teeth and lips before turning to face his adoptive father.

"That was fun. Let's try that again," Gozaburo said.

Before we could react, Obelisk attached again. That morning, in their initial duel, Gozaburo had attacked the soul Kaiba had so recently rebuilt. Now he was doing his best to beat Kaiba into the ground. There was a horrible monotony to Obelisk's attacks. There was no skill or strategy involved. This was pure, raw punishment; the delight in inflicting pain simply because you can. I was glad that Kaiba had rejected this card at Battle City, that he'd never considered adding it to his deck here.

Obelisk's attack ended as suddenly as it had been sprung. Both Kaiba and his dragon lay prone and unmoving on the ground. I turned Kaiba over and pressed the last of my healing potion into his flesh, wondering if he'd finally managed to kill himself. I held my breath as I tried to gauge his, hoping that the shallow rise and fall of his chest was more than an illusion.

His eyelids flickered, then opened. Kaiba shook his head and forced himself to stand. His dragon followed, then took to the air again.

"You always did get violent the minute you were thwarted," Kaiba observed, managing to throw a cocky grin in Gozaburo's direction.

I thought of the scars that ran across Kaiba's torso and back and shuddered. How many of them had been earned when Gozaburo's calculated torture had turned to pure rage?

Without speaking, Gozaburo unleashed Obelisk again. We still had no answer; we'd been too stunned by swiftness and savagery of each attack to mount one.

Yugi ran forwards, his supply of healing potion already in his hands. "This can't go on!" he yelled.

"It won't," Gozaburo said. He summoned Life Shaver with a snap of his fingers. As Life Saver's hourglass broke, the bottle in Yugi's hand shattered as well. Yugi stared in shock as the life-saving potion spilled through his hands and was lost to the ground below. "Maybe it'll seed the flowers for your funerals," Gozaburo taunted.

"No! You're never hurting Nisama again!" Mokuba yelled.

Fledgling Grace hurled himself upwards as Obelisk attacked Shimmer Dragon again. I expected Fledgling Grace to fly straight at Obelisk but as Shimmer Dragon plummeted back to earth, he changed course, shifting instantly from attack to defense. Small as he was, his outstretched wings managed to hold up Shimmer Dragon, as the baby pegasus slowly lowered them both to the ground.

Mokuba gasped in pain and huddled into himself. We watched in horror as blood stained the edges of Fledgling Grace's feathers. Mokuba could use Fledgling Grace to heal Shimmer Dragon as effectively as any potion, but only at the cost of absorbing some of the damage himself. I shook my head, both horrified and impressed. Pegasus had told the story of the Kaiba brothers in two cards.

"Mokuba… no…" Kaiba muttered as their monsters reached the ground and Shimmer Dragon wrenched herself away from her diminutive protector.

Gozaburo's harsh laugh broke the silence. He'd been focused solely on Seto since the duel had started. Now he turned to Mokuba.

"You always seemed to be a fairly –if not spectacularly – intelligent child. Certainly you're bright enough to understand that your brother has used you over and over, however and whenever it suited him. Seto tossed you to me to create a distraction when we fought for control of my corporation. Yet you went back to Seto the first chance you got, only to almost be repaid for your loyalty with death."

"You don't get it. You never have. Nobody ever does. There's nothing you can tell me about Nisama that I don't already know. And none of that matters," Mokuba gasped. He crawled to Seto. They leaned against each other; neither was ready to face the challenge of standing. Like his brother, Mokuba's voice was steady.

"Stay out of this, Mokuba! It's too dangerous!" Kaiba ordered.

Mokuba shook his head. "When you were my age, you took on the world. I only have to stand up to one person and that's you."

"Back at…" Kaiba paused, swallowed, then started again, "Back at Death-T I knew one day you'd be big enough to challenge me. But there was so much I didn't understand."

"If you want to die together, I'm ready to oblige. I'll even insist you face it together," Gozaburo said, playing Block Attack.

So Gozaburo had noticed that the battle damage had transferred itself to Seto and Mokuba when their monsters were in defense mode. I'd known Gozaburo was a sadist for almost as long as I'd known the brothers. I'd forgotten he was an intelligent one.

"You just keep showing how little you know," Mokuba taunted. "No, Nisama never told me what he was planning back when you were both fighting over Kaiba Corporation. He never asked me. He didn't have to. I wanted to see you taken down just as badly as he wanted to do it. I wanted you _dead_."

"We have to stop this, Yami!" Yugi yelled. He called up his inventory of monsters, although we both knew that nothing in our decks would distract Gozaburo and Obelisk from their prey. Yugi set a monster anyway.

I put my hand on his arm. "Wait. Seto and Mokuba have to figure this out on their own."

"Are we watching the same duel? They're going to kill themselves trying to save each other," Yugi said.

"No! There's more to them than stubbornness and blind self-sacrifice. There's got to be more to their monsters as well. They're going to dig deeper and find it," I answered, suddenly sure of it.

"Find what? What could be worth all this?" Yugi yelled.

Mokuba and Kaiba were still learning against each other, each breath harsh and painful. It was hard to watch. I struggled to find to words to explain.

"Mokuba has to learn that it's not enough to support his brother; that sometimes he has to defy him as well. And Kaiba has to learn that he can't sacrifice himself without injuring Mokuba along the way."

"They can't withstand another attack. We have to do something!" Yugi insisted. He broke off as Kaiba spoke to Mokuba as though they were the only two people left in the world.

"I learned that I was stronger when I was battling for you at Duelists Kingdom. I'd forgotten, before. But when I rebuilt my heart I did it right – with you as its cornerstone," Kaiba said.

"You told me that at Duelists Kingdom. But you're wrong. Love is at the center of your heart, Nisama. You just couldn't believe in it unless you gave it my name." Mokuba leaned in further; it was hard to tell if he was hugging his brother or if Kaiba was holding him up. "I don't want to be protected. Not like this. I want to share every risk; I want to be your partner. We're even stronger when we're fighting together. I promise. We've come a long way, not just from Death-T but from Duelists Kingdom as well. We can go down in flames trying to protect each other – or we can win together."

My grip tightened on Yugi's arm. "What good is friendship if it isn't based on trust? Listen to them! As hard as it is, we need to hold back and give them time to figure things out for themselves. We have to believe in them. If we can't do that, everything that's happened since we came here is meaningless."

I thought of my conversation with Sugoroku the night before. He'd been right. Yugi was the best person I knew, but he wasn't – he couldn't be – my conscience. At Duelists Kingdom I'd promised to defer to him in all things. That had been right when I'd seen the world through his eyes; had existed solely through his charity. Now if I was truly to be my own person, I had to stand up for what I believed to be true, even when my beliefs clashed with those of the best person I knew.

I was still relieved when Yugi nodded.

Kaiba's eyes widened. "Duelists Kingdom… … Pegasus…"

"Designed these cards with us in mind," Mokuba finished for him.

Kaiba swallowed and nodded. "I trust you, Mokuba. I always have."

"Then let me fight by your side," Mokuba said, calling in a Polymerization card.

If these had been two ordinary monsters, Obelisk's presence would have prevented Polymerization from working. But these were the cards that Pegasus had designed and added. Seto and Mokuba's cards were made to be together. Even a god couldn't interfere.

Shimmer Dragon and Fledgling Grace were still lying side by side. It didn't take much for them to merge. Fledgling Grace seemed to melt into Shimmer Dragon. Its head stayed the same, but its body shrunk to a horse's length and thickened. Fledgling Grace's mane seemed to remain, oddly poised on a dragon's head. The foremost tuft of hair twisted and shimmered, turning into a unicorn's horn that glowed silver and blue, as if lightning was trapped inside. The black horsehair of its mane turned to flame, matching the fiery tail that waved in the breezeless air. Shimmer Dragon's silver body warmed to molten gold, a combination of her own titanium shell and Fledgling Grace's caramel hide.

The fusion seemed to have strengthened the brothers as well as their monster. They were finally able to stand. Mokuba put his arms around his brother's waist, Kaiba's hands dropped to his brother's shoulders as they faced Obelisk – and Gozaburo – together.

Kaiba stared at the half dragon, half horse creature in front of him. He laughed as he read the monster's name. "The Modern Kirin, huh? At least it doesn't look like the one on the beer bottle."

"Nisama!" Mokuba protested. "He's awesome!"

Kaiba smiled. "He is indeed."

"How did you know it would work out? I didn't even know we could fuse these monsters," Yugi asked me.

"You and I couldn't leave this game the way we entered it. Neither can they. I'm not your other me; you can't be the brake on my actions. I had to learn that I had the right to exist, that I couldn't live through – or even for – the people I love. I knew Seto and Mokuba could do the same."

Kaiba stared at their monster a little longer then shook his head and said, "Pegasus is even crazier than I thought. The Kirin is a symbol of peace."

I glanced from the Modern Kirin to Kaiba and back again. Kaiba's short life had contained nothing but turmoil and struggle.

"You changed Kaiba Corporation. It makes games now, not weapons. That has to count for something," Yugi called out to him.

Kaiba glanced at Yugi, surprised – either by Yugi's support or by the idea that he'd managed to create peace, without having known it himself. He turned back to his and Mokuba's monster.

"Maybe," he said.

Light of Truth, Light of Hope was still on the field. Its rays caught the Kirin's golden hide. Kaiba turned from his monster to Gozaburo.

"Maybe I'm a poor match for the peaceful creatures I've chosen in this contest. Every time I look at you, all I feel is a rage so thick and implacable I can't breathe without drowning in it. But that's not why I fought you for Kaiba Corporation. We were killing people. You were using my designs to do it. No matter what it cost me, I had to stop you. I'll never be part of a war machine, I'll never let Mokuba grow up thinking causing death is any way to live."

The Kirin seemed to glow more strongly, or maybe Kaiba's certainty had made Light of Truth shine even brighter.

Kaiba turned to Mokuba. "I'm just sorry I wasn't able to hang onto enough of myself afterwards."

"I know," Mokuba said. "I've always understood. We're a team."

"Then it's time to attack," Kaiba said.

The Modern Kirin stamped the ground with one deceptively delicate hoof. Streams of water shot up from the ground surrounding Obelisk. The mini-geysers spiraled and looped backwards and forwards until they formed a living, flowing cage that imprisoned Zorc's monster. The Kirin moved forward and lowered its head until its horn touched one of the crosshatched bands of water. Electricity flowed from the horn to the cage itself, until the entire structure crackled with lightning. The Kirin backed away; his goal was containment, not destruction – a strategy I'd never seen from one of Kaiba's monsters before.

But Obelisk only knew how to obliterate. He didn't hesitate, charging forwards, trying to reach the Kirin that stood just out of reach.

Zorc had spent the duel watching Gozaburo as if he was one of his minions and Zorc was rating his performance. If Zorc threw his monsters into the battle right now it might make a difference. But as Kaiba had noted, preserving his power base was as important to Zorc as winning.

Obelisk roared as he lurched forward, trying to punch his way through his jail. With each strike he became more completely entangled. But he couldn't – or didn't know how to – stop. The more he thrashed, the tighter his bonds tightened, the deeper they cut, the more intensely the electricity that cackled through the water burned its way into his hide. His relentless power was useless against this foe. Every time Obelisk broke one of the cords binding him, it immediately reformed, still delivering its deadly charge. Obelisk screamed as smoke and mist swirled around him, half hiding him from sight. Finally he sunk beneath his liquid prison and was gone. A pool of quickly vaporizing water was all that remained where a god had once stood.

Kaiba had defeated God. He turned to face the man who had raised him, instead.

"You're the one who taught me what a shark does when there's blood in the water," Kaiba said. His voice was very quiet now. He looked alone although he still had his hands on Mokuba's shoulders. I took a step towards him.

He wrenched his gaze from Gozaburo and said to me and Mokuba, "Do you know how many times I've watched him die? I could end this now, once and for all. I built this world to get rid of the hatred he branded into my heart, the bitterness that defeated me at Alcatraz. But this game has moved beyond that. What happens here will ripple into our world as well. Gozaburo is wounded; Zorc is our priority, now. We have to destroy him while we're at our strongest and I don't want to waste another card on Gozaburo until we're done."

Mokuba nodded; his impossibly large, lavender-gray eyes were fixed on his brother. Mokuba had challenged Kaiba earlier and demanded to be treated as an equal. Now he was once again Seto's little brother, trusting that despite – or possibly because of – their shared past, whatever decision his Nisama made would be the right one.

Maybe Seto was used to having Mokuba gaze at him like that; maybe it was a burden so long carried that its weight was almost unnoticed. He turned back to Gozaburo.

"Acquiring power is the easy part, you stupid bastard. It's what you do afterwards that matters. I could take you down now; we both know it. I could show you up for the weakling you are and watch you finally die for real. But I have a responsibility to more than revenge." Kaiba turned to Zorc. "It's time to see what you have to back up all your boasts."

* * *

.

**_Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing and helping me sort this duel out. Basically thanks for helping to make sure that the chapter made sense._ **

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** There are only two chapters left. I'm trying to make this final duel feel like the culmination of all they've learned since coming into this game. I'd love to know what people think or what you felt.

I have a confession to make. When I first described Pegasus' cards, way back in Chapter 7 (so far back that I had to look it up to make sure I'd gotten the chapter number right) I had absolutely no idea what the cards were going to do or why they were needed. I just had a vision of those cards and I knew they would turn out to be important. It made me a bit nervous that I was writing myself into a corner, but I decided to include them and trust that I'd figure it out along the way.

I liked the idea that Shimmer Dragon could protect the others, but only at tremendous cost to itself – because that seems to me to be the story of Kaiba's life, or one facet of it anyway. And I also wanted Fledgling Grace to be able to heal Shimmer Dragon but only at the price of taking on its damage. But I also wanted their monsters to have a secondary power because I wanted Kaiba and Mokuba to be able to find a solution that was beyond their usual roles, to me, learning that they were capable of moving beyond their pasts was part of the story.

 **Acknowledgement and Kirin note:** As I said above, I wanted their monsters to have a secondary power, but I wasn't sure what that should be. So, I'd like to thank _Splintered Star_ for listening, offering advice and for telling me about the Kirin. I thought of it solely in terms of beer, but once I heard it was a dragon/horse mix, the possibilities seemed endless. In addition to its role in mythology/legend, it shows up a lot in pop culture, particularly in role playing games, so I incorporated some of its powers from its more modern, rather than its original incarnation.

 ** _Note to unknowntothem:_** Thanks for reviewing! I left response on my Live Journal account as per FFNet's rules against replying to reviews in stories.

 **Review Note:** I reply directly to all signed reviews. I post responses to unsigned reviews on my Live Journal account. The link is on my biopage. Anyone who wants to see a summary of all my responses can also check it out. Responses to the previous chapters will be posted when a new chapter is updated.

_I'd really like to hear from you. As always, comments are appreciated._

 


	50. Light of Destruction

**CHAPTER 50: LIGHT OF DESTRUCTION**

_The ancient Greeks coined the word "catharsis," and writers from Homer onwards have been setting their sights on it as if it was the North Star of story-telling._

**YAMI'S NARRATIVE**

"Come on! It's time to bring it!" Kaiba yelled at Zorc, predictably unfazed by Zorc's size or grotesque appearance.

Zorc didn't bother with words. Without glancing in Kaiba's direction, he started assembling his sacrifices. Yugi and I did what we could to cut down their attack strength, trying to lessen the Winged Dragon of Ra's power when he was finally summoned. I had no doubt that Zorc would call on Ra, the most powerful God Card of all, even before the incongously delicate egg of the sleeping dragon-god appeared.

Zorc began the chant needed to wake the Winged Dragon of Ra. It was meant to be a plea to the powers above for help. Zorc tossed off the words contemptuously; he was summoning a servant to do his bidding instead. As he finished, the Winged Dragon of Ra smashed its way out of its shell, eager for battle. I'd forgotten how immense Ra was, how golden… or how beautiful.

Zorc smirked; it was the first expression I'd seen on his face. "Even the representatives of the other gods bow before me. Ra was once the name used to invoke the head of the gods. Now his avatar appears at my summons and answers my command."

Zorc turned to look at Kaiba and Mokuba. "And my first order is: kill these presumptuous upstarts who dared to challenge me."

The Modern Kirin stamped his feet again, trying to contain the Winged Dragon of Ra the same way he had entrapped Obelisk. But this god-monster was too powerful to be confined. Against Ra, the cage became merely water, easily brushed away. I had held the Winged Dragon of Ra briefly, following the final duel at Alcatraz. I was stunned by its effortless, easy power.

"I made it more expensive to summon Ra," Kaiba said, staring at Zorc's monster.

"But at the price of making him even more powerful… since he's fueled by the attack strength of four sacrifices instead of three," I finished for him.

"The law of unintended consequences," Kaiba muttered.

"Now you have to live – or die – with them, boy. That's what happens when you ignore everything I tried to teach you," Gozaburo said.

The Winged Dragon opened its mouth to shoot its lightning blast. The Modern Kirin stamped its hoof again, throwing a wall of water that crackled with electricity at the monster. The Winged Dragon's lightning burst tore through it, incinerating the Modern Kirin where it stood.

Before Kaiba's Shimmer Dragon and Mokuba's Fledgling Grace had fused to form the Modern Kirin, any attack hurt not just their monsters, but their owners as well. They had been in defense mode then; I wasn't even sure if Shimmer Dragon had been capable of attacking. In contrast, the Kirin had met Ra head on. I held my breath as I waited to see if that made a difference, if their fusion monster could spare them any more pain – or if they were doomed along with their creature. I was dizzy with relief when I realized that although the Modern Kirin was gone, the Kaiba brothers were still standing.

Kaiba dropped to his knees in front of Mokuba. He ran his hands down his brother's side, needing confirmation that Mokuba was alive, that they were both unharmed. Mokuba smiled; for once it was easy for him to stare straight into his brother's eyes. "As long as we stick together, we can survive anything," he said.

"We have to help them," Yugi insisted. "They can't stand alone. Not against Ra."

The Black Magician was waiting for my summons. I could feel his eagerness. The man he'd been had died defending me against Bakura. I paused, startled as I realized that I'd just shown mercy to the man who had murdered him. But that had been in another life. Back then I would have pursued vengeance, would have considered it my duty. Now, I'd learned to show mercy as well. Mahaado's true enemy hadn't been Bakura, but Zorc, who had molded Bakura's grief into a weapon. I hoped that whatever of Mahaado's spirit lingered in the Black Magician would rest easier for being part of this final battle now.

I looked at Yugi. His Silent Magician had lain on the field, growing stronger with every moment it had passed unnoticed, gaining 500 attack points with each card our opponents drew. It still wasn't enough to beat the Winged Dragon of Ra.

Yugi looked from his Silent Magician to my Black Magician. "It looks like they were meant to be together, doesn't it?" he said.

"As if nothing can separate them," I agreed with a smile.

I was grateful to Kaiba's game for bringing us to this moment when Yugi and I once again combined our strengths, for teaching us that we didn't need to share a body to share a partnership.

"Let's do this!" But even as the words left my mouth, I had a moment of doubt. We needed Polymerization, and Spell Cards often went awry when facing the gods. I couldn't help but wonder if it would be an omen if our cards refused to merge; I knew I would feel it as a loss.

Yugi put his hand on my shoulder, reading me as easily as if he still shared my thoughts. "It'll be okay. We're a team right?"

"Always," I answered.

"That's our truth, and my card is still on the field," he said, pointing to Light of Truth, Light of Hope's rays.

Yugi played Polymerization.

Despite the black and red robes, the Silent Magician reminded me of Yugi; they had the same wide purple eyes and a hint of Yugi's shy smile was on his monster's lips. The wild stalks of hair that Yugi and I shared peeked out beneath his magician's hat. And as with Yugi, I'd watched the Silent Magician gain in strength and confidence as the duel went on.

My Black Magician bowed to him in greeting. As they clasped arms, they seemed to blur, then reformed as a single entity. Yugi and I read the title above its head together, "The Resolute Magician." He still had our hair and Yugi's smile. But the Black Magician's ice-blue eyes burned in his pale face. His robes had turned to a deep midnight blue, as dark as the coat Kaiba had worn and repeatedly destroyed throughout this game.

Yugi and I had dueled together; it had never felt like this. I was aware of myself… that I was a separate being, that Yugi was divided from me forever… and yet… as our monsters fused, we were one; different and the same.

The Resolute Magician's attack strength was equal – but not greater – than Ra's. It was as though this game was asking us how much we were willing to give up. I nodded to Yugi. He called the attack. The Resolute Magician leapt forward. A laser-sharp green beam shot out from the end of the staff he'd pointed straight at the Winged Dragon of Ra. Ra opened his enormous snout and fired a yellow burst of light in response. It met the Resolute Magician's green flame head on, creating a fireball that engulfed them both. When it cleared both monsters were gone.

Yugi and I had defeated the most powerful god card of all. I put my arms around his shoulders, relieved that there were still times when we didn't need words.

Yugi barely had time to smile back when Gozaburo made his next move.

"Wounded am I? Not worth bothering with? That was your last mistake, boy!" Gozaburo roared at Kaiba.

Gozaburo had three cards left. He played two of them: a pair of Monster Reborns. Kaiba had upped the ante for recalling a God card, but Gozaburo had just met it. He laughed as Obelisk took the field, more powerful than ever.

Kaiba's deck was in tatters. His Blue Eyes White Dragons had been destroyed before we'd even reached this final battle. He'd burned all three of his Monster Reborn cards reviving them along the way. More than any of us, he'd thrown himself into each challenge with a near suicidal abandon, and he'd borne the brunt of each encounter. But Kaiba stood as proudly as ever, even though he had nothing on the field to stand against Gozaburo.

Before Kaiba could respond, I threw my own Monster Reborn into the fray and used the Witch of the Black Forest to call up a second one, hoping Kaiba would understand. It was time for the Winged Dragon of Ra to return to battle in his more powerful Phoenix Mode. It seemed fitting, not just to purloin Zorc's monster from the graveyard and bring him back more powerful than ever – but to use Ra, the representative of the god I must have once worshiped and forgotten – to open the way to our future.

Phoenix Ra blasted across the field, like a comet streaking across the night sky, obliterating everything it touches. Obelisk had no defense against Ra in his phoenix form. Ra was as bright and vibrant as the monster Pegasus had designed for me. But this phoenix delivered death instead of life. With the destruction of Obelisk, Phoenix Ra returned to the graveyard. I closed my eyes; only an after-image of his brightness remained.

Mokuba cheered, the sound hastily choked off as he looked at his brother. Kaiba glared at the ground. His lips had tightened into a thin line; his shoulders were tense with more than remembered pain. Kaiba had fought and bled and burned to bring down Obelisk. As if in mockery of his efforts, I'd done it in seconds.

I hoped Kaiba had learned enough to understand. We were going to carry him part of the way home: not because he was weak, but because that was the true power of unity.

Kaiba swallowed hard, shut his eyes, then looked at me and nodded. I exhaled softly and turned back to our foes.

Zorc had three cards left as well. This time, we knew enough to expect that at least two of them were Monster Reborns. I had nothing left to stop a reincarnated Ra. It would go back to the graveyard after one turn, but I had nothing that could stand against it in its phoenix form.

I looked down, and then stared at my hand in disbelief. I had used Phoenix Reborn to save Bakura at the beginning of this game. I had seen it burn itself out restoring him to his family. I'd thought it was gone for good. Now like its namesake, Phoenix Reborn was back in my hand, ready to be called into battle once more.

I played it at the same instant that Zorc used his Monster Reborns. Yugi cheered when Zorc's monster appeared. My phoenix had done his job, bringing Ra back in his original form. As difficult as Winged Ra would be to defeat, at least we didn't need to face his even worse Phoenix Ra incarnation.

"Perfect," Kaiba said. I glanced at him. Kaiba's back was straight; his arms were crossed. "I created this game to smash my past. But the one thing I learned is that I can't do that without destroying myself. Each bitter experience has value – even if only to remind me of the man I can't afford to become."

"I know. In so many ways, this game has confounded my expectations – just as you have always done. I came into this game determined to find my past, only to end up using it as the fuel for my future," I answered.

Kaiba nodded. "I might have used up all three Monster Reborns, but at least I saved a final Pot of Greed for this duel – just so I could be ready to call up whatever monster I needed."

Zorc controlled Ra, but Kaiba turned to Gozaburo. He looked like he was about five seconds away from gloating. "You waited for this game to kill me. But you were the one to teach me that whatever doesn't kill you, makes you stronger."

I'd once told Kaiba that the demons we face in our duels aren't all contained in our decks. Only Kaiba would have sealed his agreement by summoning Buster Blader to the field as his champion. Buster Blader had been the last monster I'd sent against Kaiba at Alcatraz; it had been my way of proving to him that he had to look past the anger and hatred that had clouded his life. Now he'd answered me, drawing strength from every sacrifice he'd made along the way to power us to victory.

"How did that work?" Yugi asked. "Buster Blader draws its power from the dragons in your _opponent's_ graveyard. They don't have any dragons in their graveyard right now. But Buster Blader's attack strength is through the roof!"

"Who said anything about them?" Kaiba answered, gesturing towards Gozaburo and Zorc. "As far as the game is concerned this has been one unending challenge." He laughed. "Think for a minute. Who have I been fighting this whole time? Who's been my fiercest opponent? Do you know how many dragons the game has thrown at me? Do you know how many more I've sent to the graveyard just to get to this point? I'm calling on every single one of them now to help us win."

I'd carried Buster Blader in my deck, had thought of him as akin to my Black Magician. He was covered from head to toe in purple-black armor. Immensely powerful and grimly intent, he now seemed like a match for the man at my side. Buster Blader faced the Winged Dragon of Ra carrying the sum of Kaiba's life, charged by the power of his repeated sacrifices. Everything Kaiba had lost and struggled to regain now lent power to his monster's sword.

Buster Blader met the Winged Dragon of Ra's attack head on, deflecting it with a parry of his sword, then using both hands to sweep the blade forward. His first stroke severed a wing. As the beast toppled over, his second sliced cleanly through its outstretched neck. The Winged Dragon of Ra had died for a second time.

Gozaburo and Zorc were each down to their last card.

"This should get interesting. Any bets on what they're holding?" Kaiba said.

I nodded. They could each hold three Monster Reborns. They had each used two. If they wanted to resurrect the Phoenix Ra, they would have to work together. If they did, I wasn't sure how – or if – we could stop them. My own phoenix had disappeared again and we didn't have the time to wait for his return. Buster Blader was carrying the strength of Kaiba's sacrifices into battle, but no monster, no matter how powerful, could stand up to the Phoenix Ra.

Zorc and Gozaburo looked at each other.

"As I told you when we met, we can argue about the spoils once we've secured victory," Zorc said.

Gozaburo smiled. "Agreed."

"No!" Yugi blurted out. "This isn't fair. This isn't unity."

"Fairness? Unity? You sound like a backwards child. Power is the only thing that matters," Gozaburo sneered.

"I believed that for years. After all, life _isn't_ fair," Kaiba said. "But I learned at Duelists Kingdom, power is worthless unless it can help you recover and defend the things that are crucial to you. Otherwise, it's just another way to hide from your own weakness. Justice matters. So does responsibility."

"I'm not surprised you picked Buster Blader. He matches you." Yugi smiled. "We're so different. Where you see justice, I see truth. And where you see responsibility, I have hope. Pegasus designed a card for me as well."

"You want to equip Buster Blader with your card?" Kaiba asked.

"No. You can also equip your opponents' monsters. People keep forgetting that. Ra is the sun god. My card belongs with him."

The Winged Dragon of Ra was even more beautiful in Phoenix Mode. Where my Phoenix Reborn combined all the colors of fire from the orange embers of a banked campfire to the white hot light at its center, Phoenix Mode Ra was pure lightning in avian form. It flew up to meet Yugi's card as though it had been called to it. It hung in the sky, bathed in Light of Truth, Light of Hope's rays, becoming more incandescent with each passing moment.

Maybe the light reminded Phoenix Ra of his true nature. Maybe it let him see into the truth of the men who had summoned him. They had combined their cards, but it was a mockery of unity, inherently unstable and doomed to break. Yugi's card had exposed their union for the fraud it was. And Phoenix Ra responded to its newfound knowledge. The rays from Yugi's card seemed to shine through the slightly more yellow light of Phoenix Ra's form, as though pinpointing weaknesses where a sword could strike, weakening it enough that it couldn't – or refused to – destroy the monster in front of it.

Kaiba's monster.

Buster Blader strode forward, still carrying the sum of Kaiba's life on his blade, still determined to beat the god in front of him if that's what it would take to finally win this game, still resolutely reckless. Kaiba had once told me that what was in the hearts of men could surpass even God. I waited for Buster Blader to prove him right.

I was usually the one laying down the final card to end the duel. Maybe, even without my memories, something from my past had lingered. I'd accepted not just victory, but being the victor as my due. But this was a new age. Now I was watching as my partner and my rival – the two people I loved most in this or any world – sealed our triumph instead.

Buster Blader finally reached Ra. Each stoke was perfectly placed, each sweep of his blade widened the cracks that Light of Truth, Light of Hope had revealed. Phoenix Ra wasn't fighting him. Yugi was right: Phoenix Ra, as much as any of us, was a creature of light and truth. He would rather go to the graveyard himself than deny his nature.

I was used to all the ways that duel monsters could break or shatter. Phoenix Ra seemed to dissolve back into the light that streamed down on him, to join with it as if, like us, it was finally ready to go home.

"I really have to take those cards out of circulation," Kaiba said.

The duel was over; Zorc and Gozaburo had no cards left to play. It took me a moment to realize: we had finally won.

Zorc and Gozaburo stared at each other. I don't think, even as their all-powerful gods were turned aside time and time again, they had ever believed this moment would come. They didn't have long to react. I'm sure Kaiba – and more to the point, Mokuba – would have appreciated a more dramatic finale, but I was glad it was over quickly. They seemed to blur, just as monsters do when they are merging, except instead of reforming they became swirls of smoke: reddish black for Gozaburo, purple and gold for Zorc. A wind rose, blowing them towards me… or rather towards the Puzzle around my neck. I could hear the wind – or the souls trapped inside of it – howl as it reached, then entered my Puzzle.

Then the Puzzle shattered. Pieces flew in all directions. I gave up trying to follow their scattered flight pattern. I was left with a plain golden chain encircling my neck. As I stood there, staring at nothing, a sight, all the more welcome for the long wait, appeared. The four virtual reality pods had arrived.

* * *

.

**_More thanks than I can express to Bnomiko for betaing this and every other chapter._ **

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I'm sorry for the wait between chapters. I was sick for all of September. I'm fine now, but it's taken me a while to get back on track, creating an unavoidable delay.

Health stuff aside, I found this chapter very difficult to finish. After 50 chapters, I wanted the ending of their final duel to be satisfying. It's funny, because the tension in a story usually comes from not knowing whether the characters will survive. Although I tried my hardest to make people suspend disbelief on that front and worry anyway, I tried to have the mystery be centered on how they were going to win. I wanted them to win in a way that wrapped up what they have learned and how they have grown from then until now. I'd really appreciate hearing what you thought.

**Acknowledgement:** **_Halowing_** wondered if Shimmer Dragon could only attack in its fused form and if Kaiba had to trust enough to join his monster with someone else in order to unleash its attack power. I had wanted to show that Kaiba could only use Shimmer Dragon to its fullest potential if he could bring himself to trust Mokuba as a full partner and let him share in the risks, but I hadn't thought that refusing to do so would block Shimmer Dragon's ability to attack. But I really liked that idea and tried to incorporate it as a possibility in this chapter.

**Card Note:** Perhaps appropriately, it's hard to pin down exactly how the god cards work. In the earlier duels spell and trap cards are useless against them, in the later duels some of them work. And then, of course, the actual cards you'd use in a real life game work totally differently. And of course in this story, duels work on a more symbolic level and you have the Pegasus designed cards added to the mix. Mr. Takahashi once explained that the reason cards in his story didn't work like cards in real life was because he was telling a story not playing a card game. I decided to that made sense, and to go with what worked best in terms of the theme and emotions.

In the actual card game, the Silent Magician is female. However, in the anime, they made the card, particularly in its less powerful incarnations, look like Yugi, and it's decidedly more androgynous. I wanted to keep the connection between the Silent Magician and Yugi, since like him the card looks weak at first and gains in strength and confidence the longer it stays in the duel.

**_Note to Yami E:_** Thanks for reviewing! I replied in more detail on my LiveJournal page. The link is on my profile.

_Please review. Comments would be adored._


	51. Rise of Destiny

**CHAPTER 51: RISE OF DESTINY**

_From Homer to Tolkien, heroes have returned from quests to find that the home they've come back to is almost unrecognizable as the one they've left._

_Of course, as Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz" can attest, sometimes the reverse is true as well. You can fight your way back home to discover that it isn't the only – or even the major thing – that's changed._

**KAIBA'S NARRATIVE**

It was strange watching Gozaburo turn to smoke, watching him swirl towards the Puzzle, watching it shatter leaving nothing behind. He was finally gone. I'd expected to feel triumphant, like I'd finally won my longest game, but all I could think of was how much I wanted to go home. I'd been trying to reach my future, now I was finally ready to meet it. With perfect timing, that was when the VR pods appeared.

But I should have known we weren't leaving without a little more drama and a few good-byes. Before we could head for the pods, a giant, translucent, pink soap bubble appeared on the horizon. It grew bigger as it approached, until we could clearly see Noa, Pegasus and a blonde haired woman inside. Pegasus' arm was around her. Even at this distance it was easy to tell he wasn't letting go any time soon.

"First it was unicorns, now he's riding around in soap bubbles. It's a good thing we're leaving before I have to watch Pegasus using the Blue Eyes Toon Dragon as his personal taxicab," I muttered.

"For all we know, he's harnessing its breath to cook dinner. Castles to live in… fantastic beasts to ride… I wonder how long he's been planning this?" Yami murmured.

That thought was even more offensive than Pegasus' usual antics, but before I could say anything, Mokuba and Yugi started laughing.

"It figures Pegasus would try to outdo Good Witch Glinda," Mokuba said.

"From the Wizard of Oz," Yugi added, glancing in my and Yami's direction.

I wasn't sure which one of us he was clarifying things for, but if he thought I was in a business relying heavily on special effects without having studied its history, he was more off base than usual. Yami was looking blank though, so I explained, "Early fantasy movie, circa 1939. Special effects as clunky and unconvincing as you'd expect given the decade. The best one is the simplest: changing from black and white for Kansas to color for Oz."

"The best things – like love or family – are often the simplest, Kaiba-boy," Pegasus said as they stepped from the huge, cotton-candy pink bubble as casually as if we were back in Domino and they'd just gotten out of their car.

Yugi gestured towards the pods. "Once we leave, this can't be undone," he said as if we hadn't covered that ground pretty thoroughly already.

"Maybe I should have insisted he move on without me. Maybe if I hadn't returned…" Pegasus' wife said. It was strange hearing her voice. I'd always dismissed her as just being part of Pegasus' crazy obsession. It took me a moment to remember her name.

"If you hadn't, I'd have spent eternity trying!" Pegasus said, grabbing both her hands and facing her.

"I'm selfish. I wanted this chance so badly," she said, looking up at him.

"You don't know what'll happen when we leave," Yami interrupted.

"Neither do you. The question is, which fragile, unknowable existence do you wish to stake your life on?" Pegasus answered.

Yugi looked ready to argue, but Yami nodded. "I understand. If everything I loved was here, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else."

Noa had been in the background. He walked towards Mokuba, then stopped for a moment, squinting his eyes and frowning in concentration. He took a final step forward and wrapped his arms around Mokuba. He stayed there hugging Mokuba and feeling Mokuba return the gesture until his form became slightly shadowy again. Mokuba was left embracing the air.

Noa stepped back. "I wanted to hug you before you left."

Mokuba nodded. "I love you, brother. I'll never forget."

"Of all the different ways people keep seeking immortality, being remembered by the people you love is the best," Noa said.

Noa turned to me and bowed. I returned the gesture. I remembered Noa saying that the same man had raised us. Now we had both had a hand in ending his existence.

"He was obsessed with you," we said to each other at the same time.

"No," Noa said sadly. "He was obsessed with seeing his legacy survive. Once my part in that was over… or maybe it's just that what he wanted was always going to be more important than what he had and he never could keep from throwing away what he had. He never learned."

I thought of Yami who'd come into this game eager to trade any chance at a future for a glimpse of his past, as though time could run backwards. I hadn't been any better. For all I'd talked of a future I'd never believed I deserved one. And we'd both forgotten that the road to the future starts in the present; that what's going on here and now matters. Maybe that was another difference between me and Gozaburo. Unlike him, I could learn.

"I didn't think you could change either. I was wrong," I said to Noa. "They say chess is a game of patricide with the new king surpassing the old."

"In a way, I hope so," Noa said. "I hope he's at peace."

I just hoped Gozaburo was gone for good, but Noa had earned my silence on that front. I hated the old bastard, but Noa was no better or worse than myself. And no one else, not even Mokuba, would ever know as thoroughly what it meant to be Gozaburo's son.

"I wasn't a player," he said. "But just like you, I found my own answers. It's funny… I was the one looking for this all to end, not Father… and I'm the one with the second chance. It doesn't seem fair somehow."

He concentrated again then leaned forward and pressed his palm to mine. The gesture seemed to call for a response. I put my free hand on his shoulder. As we broke apart I put my hands in my pockets. I was glad my clothes had managed to repair themselves one final time since I didn't want to show up in Domino looking like some stray dog from the gutter. Yami squeezed my shoulder briefly.

Pegasus looked at Yugi. "Tell Anzu not to be too angry with me. Tell her I'm happy." He smiled. "Tell her I was made for extravagance, just as she's made for more mundane and earth-bound joys. Remind her not to overlook the _little_ things in life."

Yugi blushed, then nodded and said, "I'll tell her."

Pegasus laughed. "Believe me, I'm trying to do you a favor, little Yugi."

"He's sending Yugi back looking like a tomato. Some favor," I muttered to Yami, trying to figure out when Yami had decided jabbing me in the ribs was a fun activity.

Maybe the others had more confidence in the sanctity of penalty games, or maybe they just had more confidence period, because after a final set of farewells, Mokuba, Yami and Yugi went to the VR pods and jumped in without hesitation. Yugi slammed the door shut. Mokuba and Yami did the same a moment later. I'd reached the pods as well, but I hesitated and watched them disappear. As I breathed a sigh of relief, I heard Pegasus chuckle behind me.

"I would have done the same. I would have made sure they were safely bestowed rather than risk rejoining a world that didn't contain them."

I nodded.

Cynthia said, "But sooner or later you'll lose the ones you love – or they'll lose you. You can't control that. Please don't try."

"Like your husband did? If you think it was such a bad idea why are you here?" I asked.

Her smile was too sad to be merely a matter of pixels and refracted light. It might have been the realest thing in this world.

"He gave me a semblance of life and paid with his sanity. Have you ever loved anyone so much you'd give up everything you have for them?"

My smile matched hers. "Yes. And I'm going back for more of the same."

Noa came forward again. "Tell Mokuba…" he said, then he stopped.

"I will," I answered, although we both knew neither was going to be able to find the words. "Good luck," I added. It wasn't much, but I meant it. I looked from him to Pegasus, surprised to find I was worried. "Take care of yourself," I added.

"So much distrust," Pegasus murmured.

"I've seen how you treat your partners," I observed.

"Cynthia never wanted anyone hurt on her behalf. In my grief over losing her, I dishonored her memory."

"I'm willing to take the chance." Noa smiled. "Your brother taught me to hope."

"Then it seems that we've reached an accord." Pegasus looked at me. "You're a little too old for me to call you Kaiba-boy anymore."

"I always was," I pointed out.

"In either case, it seems the title has passed to a new owner. I will try to do a better job by my newest partner. He's so much cuddlier and nicer. It shouldn't be too difficult."

I saluted and climbed in the remaining pod. It was time to catch up with the others.

* * *

**SUGOROKU'S NARRATIVE**

Waiting is hard.

We looked at each other as the first pod appeared. Anzu crossed her fingers. Jounouchi started mumbling, "C'mon, Yugi," as if repeating it over and over would bring my grandson safely home. It was suddenly hard to breathe. In all the weeks we'd been here, I'd never known that Isono and Fubeta were armed, but now they were pointing guns at the pod as we waited to see who – or what – emerged.

The pod doors finally opened. Yugi jumped out and ran straight to me and his friends. After a second of silence as we absorbed the fact he was really here in front of us, cheers exploded all around me. I tried to hug Yugi, but had to settle for grabbing a shoulder. Jounouchi and Honda pounded his back and whatever else they could reach. I grinned. My grandson was a chip off the old block – Anzu was the one he was hanging onto. I turned back to the front of the room as more pods materialized.

Isono spoke into the pin on his lapel, probably telling the small army waiting outside the door to stand down.

Mokuba and Yami climbed out next. I'd thought the room couldn't get any noisier; the next minute proved that it could. Yami ran to Yugi and embraced him, saying "Partner," again and again as if it was Yugi's name. Yugi let go of Anzu to hug Yami in return. They clutched each other, laughing and shaking, like years had passed instead of minutes since they'd last seen each other.

"I'm so glad! I can't believe it's all really happening," Yugi cried. After another hug and a few more tears, Yugi released Yami and reclaimed Anzu's hand.

"I know! I can't either!" Jounouchi said, springing forward to poke Yami in the belly before pinching his arm.

"Hey!" Yami protested.

"That proves it! This isn't a dream!" Jounouchi shouted triumphantly.

"You're supposed to pinch your own arm, not someone else's," Honda said.

Everyone burst into laughter. I hugged Yami. "It's good to be able to do that in this world as well."

Yami smiled. "Yes it is."

I glanced back at Isono and Fubeta. They hadn't holstered their weapons. I looked around for Mokuba, suddenly realizing that he hadn't joined the celebration. He was still by the VR pods. I swallowed, suddenly nauseous as I counted… there were only three pods in all. Mokuba was staring at the blank space where the fourth pod should have been.

"Yami…" he said, glancing at the still-cheering crowd.

Mokuba had spoken quietly, but Yami turned as swiftly as if he'd been summoned from a deck. He ran back to Mokuba.

"Where's Nisama?" Mokuba whispered, lacking breath for more than those two words.

Yami scanned the room, then slammed his hands down on the pod door nearest him and said, "Damn him!"

"Yami… you don't think… he wouldn't…" Mokuba said, reaching towards him.

With the kind of timing Kaiba specialized in, the fourth VR pod finally arrived.

Yami ran to the pod, almost getting hit in the face as the door flew open. He reached in and grabbed Kaiba by his coat lapels. The taller duelist had to scramble to keep his long legs from getting tangled in the pod wall as Yami dragged him out.

"You just couldn't go on faith, could you?" Yami demanded.

Kaiba must have managed to hang onto something from his game because he looked sheepish.

"Yami…" he said.

"You had to offer yourself as a target one last time. At heart, no matter how much you try, that'll always be your first instinct, won't it?" Yami demanded, shaking him slightly.

Kaiba's eyes widened. For an instant he let Yami see that he was afraid, without caring who was watching.

"I'm sorry." Kaiba said the words quietly, but they got the entire room to turn and stare at him.

"Don't be. It's part of who you are," Yami replied, leaning against Kaiba's chest. "I'm just glad you're here so I can fulfill my promise to yell at you as often as possible." They were both sublimely unaware of their audience.

"What now?" Kaiba asked.

"This…" Yami said, kissing him.

"Yes. This," Kaiba answered as he bent down to return Yami's kiss.

"Hey! What the fuck?" Jounouchi said, the last word muffled as Honda got his hand over his friend's mouth.

"I don't get it either, but this is so not the time, Jounouchi," Honda whispered.

"We did it. We're home," Kaiba said, briefly lifting his head from Yami's. The pure longing in his voice silenced even Jounouchi.

Anzu smiled at Kaiba and Yami. It was a determined smile, but it was there. She was holding Yugi's hand tightly.

"I'm glad you're _both_ back safely," she said, although there was no sign that either Kaiba or Yami had heard her.

Yugi grinned and grabbed her other hand.

"This game was about finding yourself," I reminded Jounouchi and Honda. "Sometimes when you do that you find the people you want to be with as well."

Jounouchi's eyes lit up. "So you mean if Mai and I played this game…" he said.

I looked at Yugi who was holding on to Anzu's hands, then at Yami and Kaiba who had finally stopped kissing. "If you know who you want, why do you need a game to tell you what to do?" I asked.

"This is definitely going to take some getting used to," Jounouchi said, but he was grinning. Having his friends safe outweighed everything – even seeing one of his best friends kissing his biggest pain in the ass. He turned to Isono. "What gives? Why didn't you give us a heads up? Did you guys see this coming?"

Isono and Fubeta looked at each other and shrugged. Their matching infinitesimal smiles looked equally out of place on their usually serious faces.

Yami had his arm around Kaiba's hips; his thumb was hooked around the taller boy's belt. He was using it as a handle to steer him towards the group. Kaiba would probably have stood on the edges – or slipped out of the room – but he followed Yami docilely enough. Mokuba circled around them like a noisy satellite.

Kaiba looked over at me. His body stilled. I could read the uncertainty on his face as clearly as if he had opened the covers of a book. I started to tell him to keep in touch, that my home was always open to him. But I knew, as much as he had changed, if all I did was offer, he'd never follow through.

"If I have to haunt the Kaiba Corporation lobby until you finally decide it's time to go home, I'm not giving up on our friendship now that I've gotten to know you," I told him.

"I better tell my security staff to give you the run of the place then." He glanced at Isono. "If they haven't already. Go home and get some sleep first though, old man. You look like shit."

"So do you," I assured him.

Isono and Fubeta had holstered their weapons, but they'd remained in the back of the room. Mokuba caught sight of them and ran forwards, launching himself at them. Isono caught him in midair.

"You guys were awesome! I knew we could count on you!" Mokuba yelled.

Isono walked towards Kaiba, with Mokuba still hugging him around the waist. He reached his boss and held out a sheaf of papers. Even from here, I could see it was a contract. Kaiba took the letter on top and scanned it. His face paled as he read.

He called to Yugi, "You need to hear this; it concerns you as well."

Yugi and Anzu walked over.

When they had reached him, Kaiba began reading Pegasus' letter aloud.

"Dear Kaiba boy:

My felicitations. If you're reading this, you've managed to survive as usual. As you know, since I tried to take it over by force, I've always thought that Kaiba Corporation and Industrial Illusions belonged together. My reasons were completely selfish, but the idea was sound. However, now that I'm at the point of gaining everything I sought from the merger, I'm giving you a present: part ownership in Industrial Illusions. Do I really need to tell someone as experienced as you that nothing comes without a price? You'll have to learn how to play nicely with others, since Yami and Yugi are now your partners. (It seems like a reasonable assumption that if you managed not to kill yourself in the face of so much temptation, they survived as well.)"

"Pegasus must have made a mistake! I don't know anything about business besides how to stock shelves and make change!" Yugi said.

Kaiba snorted then continued reading. "I'm sure little Yugi has interrupted by now to say something pointlessly modest. Ask him who is better equipped to understand all those duelists who want to play the game for fun."

Kaiba paused again, winced as he scanned the next part, glared pre-emptively around the room, and then resumed reading in such a deliberately expressionless voice it managed to keep everyone quiet.

"As for your other partner – and I hope you appreciate how wonderfully ambiguous the word 'partner' can be – remind him that business is just another game, and I doubt that all the magic has left him in that regard.

I realize there were four of you in that virtual world, but the best present I can give your brother is to treat him like an underage child who shouldn't be mixed up in any of this, even though he's remarkably good at meddling where he doesn't belong."

Kaiba folded the letter and handed it and the contract back to Isono.

"You're not going to listen to him about me, right, Nisama? Because if we're adding on Industrial Illusions, you're going to have to let me take on more of the marketing and promotions. You know I like it more than you. It's the only way you're going to have the time to design new cards. Only no more hateful ones!"

"The game will always require 'hateful' cards as you term them. But I promise to remember that it also needs balance," Kaiba said seriously.

"And you have two partners who'll remind you," Yami pointed out.

Kaiba turned to the VR pods. "The first order of business is going to be dismantling those things."

"Poor Noa," Mokuba said.

Yami frowned thoughtfully. "I hope Noa's all right. I hope the temptation to find and assemble the Puzzle pieces, to try and redeem his father doesn't prove too much for his fortitude."

"It won't." Kaiba reached in his pocket, then held out his hand. The eye from the center of Yami's Puzzle winked at us, reflecting the overhead lights.

"Nisama?" Mokuba asked.

"It was a going-away present from our brother," Kaiba said shortly. Tears came into Mokuba's eyes. He clutched his brother around the waist. We could see his shoulders shaking, but his sobs were muffled against Kaiba's chest.

"It's okay, Mokuba. He said to tell you… he said to tell you…" Kaiba started.

"I know. I love him too, and I hope he'll be happy. Even if I never get to see him again, just knowing him makes up for it all."

Kaiba smiled. "That's what he said." He glanced back at the pods and added, "And if he's going to be stuck somewhere away from us, my virtual world is a pretty amazing place."

"It was an awesome game, Nisama! It's a shame we'll never get the chance to play it again."

I looked at Jounouchi, Honda, Isono and Fubeta standing together like a mismatched quartet. I looked at Kaiba. He had one arm wrapped around Yami's waist; the other hand was resting on Mokuba's head. I looked at Anzu. She was gazing downwards at Yugi; he was still in her arms. He grinned at me and I couldn't resist giving my grandson a thumbs-up sign.

I smiled back at the youngest Kaiba brother. "I think you're wrong. With any luck, we'll all be playing this game for a long time to come."

* * *

.

**_ Acknowledgements: _ ** _"Giving Up the Ghosts is over 250,000 words long, but it would take me many, many more words than that to express my thanks to BnoMiko for betaing the story, for listening to me whine and obsess about ridiculously small details, for looking up duel monsters with me, for challenging and questioning and encouraging me, and for making the whole process so much more fun._

I'd like to thank Kagemihari for encouraging me to write Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfiction and Splintered Star for letting me bounce ideas off of her and bouncing a few of her own right back at me.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

It's taken me almost four years to complete "Giving Up the Ghosts," and I have absolutely no idea what to say now, except: thank you for reading it.

When I started posting, even though I had an outline and a 200 page double-spaced first draft, I had no idea what I was getting into, how long it would take, or how many words I'd use before reaching the final ones. But one thing that struck me at Alcatraz was Yami telling Kaiba that the demons they carry into their duels aren't contained in their decks. You can see so clearly how the events of Kaiba's life – his parents' death, being abandoned by his relatives, taking on the responsibility for Mokuba's welfare, Gozaburo, being betrayed by Pegasus, the Big 5 and his bodyguards – have made his demons so entrenched.

I wanted to give Kaiba the time to take a good, hard look at them. Kaiba's always willing to fight, but I wanted him to understand the battle and its stakes as well. And I wanted to give Yami and Yugi the chance to look at where they'd been, who they'd become, and decide where they wanted to go from there. Kaiba and Yami spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to win the game. To me though, winning means that they no longer need a virtual world to help them sort things out.

Finally ending "Giving Up the Ghosts" is both sad and satisfying. Sad, because come tomorrow I know I'm going to miss living with it. Satisfying because win, lose or draw, I told the story I meant to, to the best of my ability. Thank you for sticking it out with me. I hope you enjoyed it.

The quote that sums up reading and writing best to me is Louise Rosenblatt's, **"A story's just ink on a page until a reader comes along to give it life."**

_Whether your response is positive, negative or anything in-between, please review. I'd really like to hear from you and find out what you thought/felt about the story._

* * *

**UPCOMING STORY IDEAS:**

About a year ago I was surprised to find out that all my plot bunnies hadn't all taken flight. I actually have two upcoming story ideas:

**Tentative title: Hello Kitty Kaiba**

Despite the title it's **NOT** a crossover! Everything's status quo in the Yu-Gi-Oh! world. Monsters are attacking, Yugi and friends are about to save the world and Kaiba's their reluctant ally. Friendship and trust seem irrelevant until a cat-headed goddess decides to take a hand in their affairs.

I expect the story to be 7 – 9 chapters, and head straight into the humor/angst category.

**Tentative title: Return to Romance**

It was the happy ending nobody expected – especially Yami. He knows he should be grateful but living had never been part of his game plan before. Kaiba decides it's time to repay his debts. But rivalry and obligation don't quite add up to friendship, much less romance.

I'm not sure how many chapter this will be, but I can safely promise it'll be shorter than "Giving Up the Ghosts." I wanted to write a romance, only the more I look at it the less sure I am that the traditional meaning of "romance" applies.

_If you enjoyed "Giving Up the Ghosts," I hope you check them out._

 


End file.
